When Regina Hall met her “One Battle After Another” co-star Chase Infiniti for the first time, she did not think the young up-and-comer was going to nab the coveted role of Willa Ferguson, the free-spirited daughter of former revolutionaries Bob (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Perfidia (Teyana Taylor).
“She was the last person that came in that day, and we had [seen] some really good people. So the truth is, I felt bad for her,” Hall recalled, while speaking with Infiniti at TheWrap’s Power Women Summit 2025, presented by STARZ #TakeTheLead. “She was pretty — what’s the word — nice? She was talking about her sister and her parents and [it] sounded like a loving home, parents still married, and I was like, ‘Well, she’s definitely not… this ain’t it right here.’”
Hall’s preconceptions were quickly shattered by Infiniti’s audition. “She was so wonderful and completely different [from] who she is,” the screen veteran told those in attendance Tuesday at the Maybourne Beverly Hills in Los Angeles. The actress was so blown away by Infiniti’s talent that, by the time “One Battle After Another” writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson had whittled his list of contenders for the part of Willa down to three, she felt sure he would end up choosing the “Presumed Innocent” star.
“Because we had been in the other camera tests, we realized, ‘Wow, there’s something about her,’” Hall said, reflecting on her and DiCaprio’s initial assessment of Infiniti. “There was just something great about the father-daughter dynamic between [her] and Leo.” Hall felt so confident Infiniti was the right choice for the role that she ended up saying as much in front of the young actress — albeit accidentally.
“We thought all the girls had left,” Hall explained, recalling an exchange she and DiCaprio shared at the end of a day of camera tests with Infiniti and two other young actresses. “Chase was [still] there, but Leo and I didn’t know, so I was like, ‘How do you think it [went]?’”
“I said, ‘Well, it’s clear who Paul liked.’ I mean, we were talking about who’s getting the part! Now, thank the Lord, it was her,” Hall continued, while Infiniti recalled overhearing the conversation in her own “makeshift dressing room” and thinking, “Oh, God. I don’t think I should be hearing any of this.”
“We walk past [Chase’s dressing room] to leave, and I see feet! We get outside, and I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh, I know she heard.’ You couldn’t not hear it,” Hall remembered with a laugh. “We said, ‘One, Two or Three?’ There were only three. She knew she was the last one, so she was Three. There was no way to cover it up. That was the terrible [moment] I had upon meeting her, so she had better [have] gotten the part, you know what I mean? She had to get it.”
Hall, for her part, landed the role of Deandra in the film after years of being close friends and neighbors with Anderson. “We had become friends, very naturally and organically from living just in a [close] proximity,” Hall explained. “At a certain point, when you know someone and you see them regularly with their family and their kids, they’re no longer, like, this [artistic] entity.”
That all changed one day when Anderson said he wanted to speak to her. At first, Hall thought it was about the renovations going on at her home at the time, and so she spent several minutes that day outlining her plans for her backyard and pool before Anderson eventually cut in. “We walked back inside and he said, ‘I want to talk to you about [this] project,’ and in that moment, Paul became the director again,” Hall recalled.
“He said, ‘I have a project I want to talk to you about,’ and then he told me about it, and he said, ‘I don’t have the script, but I’ll give it to you soon.’ And then two months passed,” Hall added. “I was like, ‘You think he changed his mind?’ But I couldn’t tell anyone! I was like, ‘Did he mean Regina King? Has he gotten some kind of clarity? Do I ask? Does it make it awkward? We’re neighbors! What do I say? How can I drop a hint?’ I just didn’t, and I waited, and then eventually he came and brought the script.”
While sharing the Power Women Summit main stage with her, Infiniti seemed grateful that it was Hall she ended up paired with in the film. “One Battle After Another” not only marks the first feature film of Infiniti’s career, but her performance in it has turned her into a breakout star this year — and a Wrap cover story. With all that in mind, she was quick to thank Hall for the support that she has given her ever since she was cast in their Anderson-directed blockbuster.
“When I was auditioning for the film, Regina was [my] first person of contact for anything. I remember after meeting her for the first time, she was like, ‘If you ever need anything in L.A., please let me know,’ because I was shooting something else at the time, and it was my first time ever being here for an extended period,” Infiniti revealed, calling Hall the “sweetest person on the planet.”
“She told me, ‘If you ever need anything, please call me. We can go hang out,’ and [you can] trust I made use of that very often. So thank you, Regina,” Infiniti said. “It’s been an incredible year, and I have wonderful support systems like Regina to thank for that. I’ve been so, so fortunate and so, so blessed this year to be a part of an incredible film that I love so much with a cast and crew that I love so much.”
TheWrap’s Power Women Summit presented by STARZ #TakeTheLead is the essential gathering of the most influential women across entertainment and media. The event aims to inspire and empower women across the landscape of their professional careers and personal lives. PWS provides one day of keynotes, panels, workshops and networking. For more information visit: thewrap.com/pws.
For all Power Women Summit 2025 coverage, click here.
