Leonardo DiCaprio and Chase Infiniti just may have the most intriguing and complex father-daughter relationship you’ll see on-screen this year in Paul Thomas Anderson’s critically acclaimed One Battle After Another.
DiCaprio plays Bob and Infiniti plays Willa, a father and daughter duo who are navigating what is essentially a life in exile until their lives are upended once again. It’s also a relationship that sees Willa sort of parent Bob. Both spoke about that relationship in a their recent cast interview with Blavity’s Shadow and Act.
How Leonardo DiCaprio and Chase Infiniti worked on this on-screen relationship
“We did a lot of workshopping together,” DiCaprio said. “We knew that the heart and soul of this movie relied on the Willa character, so we had a lot of meetings with Chase. And I think that brought about our chemistry together in the movie, and not only our chemistry, but our backstory, and solidified what our home life was like.”
“The fact that she’s almost kind of mothering me, that I’m doing my best to be a father [and] connect with this new generation. I’m paranoid, she’s living in the future, I’m living in the past,” he continued. “All that stuff was a result of communicating together a lot.”
Infiniti confirmed just how long the workshopping lasted. “Over a long period of time,” she said.
DiCaprio responded, “Was it really that long?”
“I think it was that long,” Infiniti replied.
DiCaprio also praised Anderson’s approach. “Paul’s so unpredictable, and there’s so many unexpected things throughout this movie, and character choices, and I love that you land on these two people having an argument of a father trying to relate to his daughter,” he said. “They’re disconnected, and then all of a sudden they understand the meaning of what their relationship is when they’re ripped apart, and they just want to get back to each other.”
Leonardo DiCaprio on the film’s timeliness and its themes
When reviews started to come out for the film, early reactions have called it a “generational film” and one of Anderson’s most resonant works, given that it is timely and has political and social justice themes.
Reflecting on the story’s broader message, DiCaprio said, “I think Paul wrote a brilliant script, and he wrote it 16 years ago. Perfidia’s character says in the movie, ‘16 years later, very little has changed.’ But we keep saying the same thing. It’s holding a mirror up to the world that we’re living in right now. A world of extremism, of divisiveness, but he does it with satire and comedy, and he invites you in as an audience member to be a part of that dialogue.”
He added, “That’s what great art can do sometimes, is [to] allow you into that world to create that dialogue. So we’re just very proud to be a part of a film like this, particularly at this day and age, a film that can cause some discussion.”
