Chase Infiniti is the breakout star of Presumed Innocent

Taken from the new print issue of THE FACE. Get your copy here.

The 24-year-old newcomer from Indianapolis is certainly on the cusp of a big break – in fact, two. The actor has bagged roles in Apple TV+’s legal thriller mini-series Presumed Innocent, alongside Jake Gyllenhaal and Ruth Negga, and in Paul Thomas Anderson’s shrouded-in-secrecy BC Project (a working title) alongside Leonardo DiCaprio and Regina Hall. Not bad when you consider these are her first screen roles ever.

“I’ve just always wanted to perform,” Chase says, Zooming in from her apartment in Los Angeles, hair pulled back into a bun, revealing lots of silver jewellery. ​“When I was little, I wanted to be a singer – to be on stage. My mom [She means ​“mum” – British English Ed] encouraged me to try out for a musical and it was the best decision I’ve ever made.”

Chase, it’s clear, is a theatre kid through and through (“that’s always been my home”). Growing up, Disney princess films, Hairspray (2007) and Grease (1978) were home-viewing staples, and studying musical theatre at university was a no-brainer. Graduating from a performance course at Columbia College Chicago in 2022, Chase hit the ground running, almost immediately securing a manager off the back of her grad showcase. That mainly led to one thing: auditions, auditions, auditions, slotted around shifts working the obligatory, struggling-actor jobs in retail and social media.

At least she’d had some practice: given that the pandemic hit halfway through her degree, there was little else to do other than ​“get very, very good at filming self-tapes”. And those Zoom classes about the intricacies of nailing a character paid off. ​“I did this random audition at the end of 2022” – just seven months after graduating, mind – ​“which just so happened to be Presumed Innocent. It all worked out!”

The show, based on Scott Turow’s 1987 novel of the same name, was previously adapted for a 1990 film starring Harrison Ford. Reimagined for the small screen by Big Little Lies creator David E. Kelley, it marks Gyllenhaal’s first foray into prestige TV. He plays chief deputy prosecutor Rusty Sabich, who’s tasked with investigating the murder of his lover and co-worker (The Worst Per- son in the World’s Renate Reinsve), before himself being accused of killing her. Weaving together themes of ​“obsession, sex, politics and the limits of love”, the series drops 12^th June.

“The first time I read the script, I was like, I have to do this in complete secret! Let me close all my windows!” Chase says, laughing. ​“I couldn’t wait to see what happened next.” She plays Jaden, the daughter of Rusty and his wife Barbara (Negga). ​“She’s definitely someone who cares a lot about the people around her – a very kind and considerate person.” (Ahh.)

Facing up to such a stacked cast, on her very first job, wasn’t for the faint of heart, though. ​“I had to take a lot of deep breaths. Fortunately, everyone knew I was relatively new and they were so kind,” says Chase, who made the most of the experience. ​“I followed different departments around when I wasn’t working and asked lots of questions. It was a very nurturing environment and I felt really comfortable, which helped my performance.”

Even this early on in her career, it seems Chase has carved out something of a niche: playing the daughter of characters portrayed by heavyweight actors. In January, pictures emerged online of a dressing gown-clad, scruffy-looking, handlebar-moustache’d Leonardo DiCaprio. Turns out he was on set in Eureka, Northern California, shooting PTA’s follow-up to 2021’s Licorice Pizza.

Although details surrounding the film are hard to come by, as is always the case on a PTA joint, it’s strongly rumoured to be an adaptation of Thomas Pynchon’s 1990 novel Vineland, a satirical skewering of ​’80s-era pop culture and politics which charts the drastic transformation of American society from the free-wheeling ​’60s up until Ronald Reagan’s second election win. Anderson’s fairly impenetrable Inherent Vice (2014) was also based on a Pynchon book; around that time, he told Deadline he had a ​“possessive feeling” about Vineland.

If our intel is correct, Vineland’s protagonist Zoyd Wheeler (thought to be played by Leo) embarks on a journey with his daughter Prairie (Chase, we reckon) to find her mother Frenesi (it’s got to be Hall), an ex-hippie activist turned government informer. A couple more tidbits: Sean Penn will probably play villain Brock Vond, the film is tipped as an ​“ensemble” affair and the adaptation is rumoured to shift its focus from the ​’80s to the present day, presumably in a bid to make sense of Trump’s impact on the US’s cultural and political climate. What’s Chase got to say about all that, then?

“Um, no comment,” she responds sheepishly. Fair enough – she hasn’t made it this far to blow the lid off a new film by one the world’s greatest directors in one of her first interviews.

For now, Chase is basking in the glory of it all while ensuring she doesn’t lose momentum. Now she’s finished filming that top secret project (it’s out in August 2025), the actor is back in ​“audition city”. Zendaya and The Gilded Age’s Denée Benton are dream collaborators and, given they’re both singers as well as actors, are also models for how she’d like for her career to progress. ​“Denée has such a gorgeous aura, I love her so, so much. And, well, Zendaya was the first person I saw on TV who looked like me.”

In between landing unbelievably prestigious roles, and in keeping with her theatre leanings, Chase is also, of all things, a seasoned K‑pop dancer. Head to YouTube and you’ll find videos of her and her mates dancing as the Duple Dance Crew, covering routines by Aespa, Blackpink and, yes, THE FACE’s great mates NewJeans, all around Chicago. ​“What drew me in immediately was how entertaining it was to watch,” she says of her K‑pop fanaticism. ​“Listening to your favourite songs is fun, but learning the choreography is a whole new experience.”

Thanks in large part to their agile onstage antics, Ateez are Chase’s favourite K‑pop group. But, naturally, her enthusiasm for the scene doesn’t end there: Dumb Dumb by Red Velvet and Tag Tag Tag by Verivery are the tracks she currently has on constant rotation. Saying that… ​“I [also] really need moments of stillness,” she says, reflectively. ​“As soon as I realised I need to take time for myself while I’m working, it felt like everything clicked. I’m taking baby steps.”

But the main thing Chase Infiniti has learned from a whirlwind couple of years that have taken her from starry-eyed newbie to bonafide actor? ​“Trust your gut at all costs, because it’s never going to lie to you.” So far, so good, eh?

HAIR Maranda Widlund MAKEUP Zaheer Sukhnandan PHOTOGRAPHER’S ASSISTANT David Gurzhiev STYLIST’S ASSISTANT Melissa Gordillo