Chase Infiniti, born Chase Infiniti Payne on May 5, 2000, in Indianapolis, Indiana, is an American actress and producer who has pulled off one of Hollywood’s most remarkable debut runs in recent memory. In under two years, she went from submitting a self-tape she almost deleted to standing on the Oscars stage as part of a Best Picture-winning film.
She grew up in a biracial household in Indianapolis, developed a love for performing arts at age 10, and later earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Musical Theatre from Columbia College Chicago in 2022. Before landing her first screen role, she was teaching kickboxing classes and co-leading a K-pop dance crew. Her breakout came with the Apple TV+ legal thriller Presumed Innocent in 2024, followed by a career-defining lead role opposite Leonardo DiCaprio in Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another (2025), a film that won six Academy Awards including Best Picture at the 98th Oscars. She’s now set to headline Hulu’s The Testaments, premiering April 8, 2026.
Early Life and Education
Chase Infiniti Payne grew up on the edges of Indianapolis’s predominantly white and Black neighborhoods, in a household where music was practically a fourth family member. Her father, Keith Irvin Payne, is an African-American construction company owner and former jazz drummer. Her mother, Kimberly Dawn Able, is Caucasian, with English, German, and Scots-Irish roots. Together, they created a home full of sound, creativity, and weekend trips to musicals and plays.
Her name alone tells a story. “Chase” was inspired by Nicole Kidman’s character Chase Meridian in Batman Forever (1995), while “Infiniti” came from Buzz Lightyear’s famous line, “To infinity and beyond,” in Toy Story (1995). Her parents, married since 1996, clearly had a thing for 1995 pop culture. She has one younger sister, Dolcé Imani Payne, who works in fashion.
At 10 years old, her mother encouraged her to audition for a school musical. Chase later called it “the best decision I’ve ever made,” which says a lot, given where that decision eventually led. She attended the International School of Indiana, a private language-immersion school where she studied French, before transferring to North Central High School in Indianapolis and graduating in 2018. At North Central, she was fully immersed in show choir, theater, and productions like Shrek the Musical, where she played Dragon at 15, and Pippin. Sports were also part of the picture, including tennis, football, and track.
After high school, she enrolled at Columbia College Chicago, graduating in 2022 with a BFA in Musical Theatre. College life in Chicago wasn’t just about acting classes though. She co-founded a K-pop cover dance group called Duple Dance Crew and took on work as a kickboxing instructor, a combination that might seem random but actually built the physical confidence and discipline that would later get her cast in a Paul Thomas Anderson action film. Seven months after graduating, she signed with a manager. The rest moved fast.
Career
Chase’s professional screen career kicked off with Presumed Innocent on Apple TV+ in 2024, a remake of the classic Harrison Ford legal thriller. She played Jaden Sabich, the teenage daughter of Jake Gyllenhaal and Ruth Negga’s characters, appearing across all eight episodes of the limited series. The show became Apple TV+’s most-watched drama, and Variety praised it as one of the best legal thrillers to arrive on television in years. For Chase, it was a strong opening hand.
While still filming that series, she almost missed an audition notice buried in her inbox. She nearly deleted the self-tape request, which turned out to be for Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another. Multiple callbacks followed, then a four-day intensive karate training session in Los Angeles with Anderson watching. She was the only beginner in the room and came out the other side with the lead role.
In the film, she plays Willa Ferguson, also known as Charlene Calhoun, a karate purple belt kidnapped by a corrupt military officer who believes she may be his mixed-race daughter. Her father, played by DiCaprio, rallies former radicals to rescue her. The role demanded martial arts sequences, car chases, and shootouts, all of which her athletic background made possible. DiCaprio called her “the heart and soul of the movie,” and Anderson echoed that during his Best Picture speech at the 98th Oscars, saying: “And especially Chase. My American girl, Chase. You are the heart of this movie.”
Released on September 26, 2025, the film landed with a 95% Rotten Tomatoes score and a 95 Metacritic rating, grossed approximately $209.6 million worldwide, and earned 13 Oscar nominations, winning six: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Supporting Actor for Sean Penn, Best Film Editing, and Best Casting. Chase presented that inaugural Best Casting award onstage at the ceremony. In a widely discussed move, the Academy did not nominate her for Best Actress, which many in the industry called one of the year’s biggest snubs. DiCaprio publicly pushed back, calling her “the fabric of this movie.”
Despite missing an Oscar nod, she earned Best Actress nominations at the Golden Globes, BAFTA, SAG Awards, and Critics’ Choice Movie Awards, along with a Gotham Award nomination for Breakthrough Performer and recognition from the National Board of Review, Chicago Film Critics Association, and numerous regional critics groups.
Her next major project is The Testaments on Hulu, the sequel series to The Handmaid’s Tale based on Margaret Atwood’s Booker Prize-winning novel. She plays Agnes MacKenzie, formerly Hannah Bankole, the biological daughter of June Osborne who was raised within Gilead’s system. Showrunner Bruce Miller cast her after watching both Presumed Innocent and, notably, her K-pop dance covers, citing her versatility. The series filmed in Toronto from April through August 2025, co-starring Ann Dowd and Lucy Halliday. The trailer aired during the 98th Oscars and the series premieres April 8, 2026.
She also joined the cast of The Julia Set, a coming-of-age drama directed by Niki Byrne, playing Julia, a gifted mathematician invited into an elite prep program. The film shot in London over six weeks and co-stars Christopher Briney, Gillian Anderson, and Jason Isaacs. It’s currently in post-production with no release date set. In August 2025, she also appeared in Tyler, the Creator’s music video for “Darling, I,” after he spotted her in the One Battle After Another trailer and reached out directly.
As a Louis Vuitton brand ambassador since late 2025, she has become one of awards season’s most talked-about fashion presences. Creative director Nicolas Ghesquière described her as someone who “radiates an authenticity that is truly unforgettable.” She wore custom Louis Vuitton to the SAG Awards, the Oscars, and the Vanity Fair Oscar Party, with her lavender Oscar gown reportedly taking 750 hours to construct. Throughout awards season, she also wore her natural hair, including goddess braids at the Oscars, quietly becoming an advocate for authenticity in an industry that doesn’t always make that easy.
Personal Life
Chase Infiniti is 25 years old, standing 5 feet 3 inches tall, with an athletic build shaped by years of kickboxing and dance training. She currently resides in Chicago and is active on Instagram under the handle @chaseinfiniti, where she shares career updates and red carpet moments while keeping personal details firmly off-limits.
She’s unmarried with no children and keeps her romantic life deeply private. Brief tabloid speculation about a connection with Australian actor Jacob Elordi surfaced in late 2025 after the two were spotted together at a Gersh Emmy Party and at a Cartier event during Paris Fashion Week. Reports noted some flirty body language, but they left separately, neither has said a word about it, and the rumor faded without any confirmation.
Beyond the spotlight, she’s a self-described ATEEZ stan and has repeatedly stated that Broadway remains her ultimate dream: “Broadway has been the goal since I was a kid.” For someone already at the level she’s reached, that kind of humility and long-game thinking says a lot.
Net Worth
Chase Infiniti’s estimated net worth currently sits between $1 million and $2 million, based on figures from sources. That figure comes primarily from her role in Presumed Innocent, which reportedly earned her over $100,000, and her lead role in One Battle After Another, where her salary was estimated at $500,000 or more. Her Louis Vuitton ambassadorship adds a significant brand income stream on top of that, with additional earnings expected from The Testaments and The Julia Set.
For an actress barely two years into her professional career, those numbers are modest compared to established A-listers, but that’s precisely the point. She’s 25, has one major film under her belt, two more projects releasing in 2026, a luxury fashion deal, and awards recognition from every major ceremony except the one that snubbed her. The financial ceiling from here is hard to measure.
