Breakthroughs don’t get much bigger than the one that Chase Infiniti has enjoyed in 2025. The 25-year-old actress entered the year with a singular TV credit under her belt, and is now known throughout the world after playing a key role in one of the year’s biggest (and best) films, “One Battle After Another.” She delivers the kind of performance that can thrust a performer into the awards race and toward the heights of Hollywood stardom. But while accepting the Breakthrough Award at the 2025 IndieWire Honors, Infiniti redirected the spotlight toward the people who helped her get to where she is.
“Receiving the Breakthrough Award for ‘One Battle After Another’ is a lot to take in,” Infiniti said. “Especially when there are so many people in this room who have influenced and inspired me.”
Infiniti recalled her first role in the Apple TV+ series “Presumed Innocent,” and how she learned how a set runs from the crew members who were willing to let her observe their work.
“My first time on set I had the privilege of working alongside Jake Gyllenhaal and Ruth Negga. Early on I had conversations with Anne Sewitsky, who directed our first two episodes and the finale of ‘Presumed Innocent.’ And she noticed my interest in understanding the set and the mechanics of filming a TV show. She said to me ‘Come whenever you want, the door is open.’ And she meant it,” Infiniti said. “So I shadowed her, and the costume department and the grips and the DP, anyone who would let me watch. Being on a set so open and generous gave me a foundation and prepared me for what came next, which somehow happened to be a Paul Thomas Anderson movie.”
But even with that foundation, nothing could have truly prepared Infiniti for the ways that starring in Paul Thomas Anderson’s “One Battle After Another” would change her life.
“‘One Battle After Another’ has been the wildest and most unbelievable experience,” she said. “Training for six months for a part I wasn’t sure I had, screen testing with Leonardo DiCaprio and Regina Hall, facing off with Sean Penn, learning how to drive with my hands zip-tied, meeting the incredible Benicio del Toro and getting to know the force of nature that plays my mom, Teyana Taylor. My film debut was truly one for the books, and ‘One Battle After Another’ has given me a thousand lessons about craft, courage, and the person I’m growing into.”
This has been a very good year for Adam Sandler, as IndieWire Honors host Vinny Thomas pointed out. He was nominated for two Emmys, had one of the biggest hits of his career with “Happy Gilmore 2,” and gave a universally praised performance in Noah Baumbach’s hilarious and moving “Jay Kelly.”
On Thursday night, when Sandler took the stage to accept the Vanguard Award from IndieWire, he reflected on his early days in Hollywood.
“I never thought about awards,” Sandler said. “This is great, and I have stuff in my house — Nickelodeon awards and all that stuff — but it’s not why I came out here. I was very young when I moved to L.A. — 22 — and my life’s been very good ever since I got here.”
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Sandler noted that on his third day in Los Angeles he was performing at the Improv when he got offered his first movie, a comedy ultimately released as “Going Overboard.” “They came up to me after I got off stage and they said, ‘Hey, do you want to star in a movie?’ And I said, ‘Yeah.’ And they said, ‘OK, we’re shooting one.’ I said, ‘That’s great. I’ll do it.’ And then they said, ‘We shoot on a boat. We’re leaving next week,’” he recalled.
Sandler’s roommate at the time, Judd Apatow, asked if he was nervous — especially since Sandler hadn’t gotten a script and had no idea what the movie was about. But Sandler dove in and shot the movie in six days with a cast that included other up-and-comers like Peter Berg, Steven Brill, and Billy Bob Thornton.
“One thing we all had in common was that we moved out here to do good stuff,” Sandler said. “Ever since that, every movie I’ve ever done, every standup show, every album, ‘Saturday Night Live,’ every time I did something I said, I just want to be as good as I can be. And that’s it. That’s all I worried about. I didn’t want to let anybody down on that first movie, I just wanted to be good because these guys believed in me. And that’s the same way I feel about my projects. I’ve had a very cool career and I work my ass off. I believe in everything I’ve done, and if it’s not perfect when it comes out, the intention was to make it as good as possible.”
Sandler said that desire to do his best extends to his most recent work, on “Jay Kelly.” “When someone like Noah Baumbach invites me to be in their movie, I just want to be the best I can be for him and not let him down and not let my family down, not let myself down,” he said. “‘Jay Kelly,’ I really love that movie. I’ll never forget how good George Clooney has been to me and Laura Dern. And I give it up to Baumbach, he worked his ass off. Every word of it meant something to him, and that made it mean the world to me.”
The event took place on Thursday, December 4, in Los Angeles with an intimate cocktail reception and awards ceremony. Stay tuned for more exclusive editorial and social content from the night, including video interviews, outtakes, and more.
Watch Infiniti’s full acceptance speech from the 2025 IndieWire Honors above.