What do you do when, after 16 years of solace, you must rejoin a cause you thought you left behind?
The cast of “One Battle After Another,” which hits theaters Sept. 26, discussed the film’s major themes — bridging generational differences, found families and political revolution — in a virtual press conference on Sept. 11.
“One Battle After Another,” an action-adventure film written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Bob Ferguson, a paranoid, former revolutionary who is now living off the grid. Chase Infiniti plays his daughter, Willa, making this her feature-film debut.
For DiCaprio, “the central heart and the core of the film was Willa’s journey,” he said at the press conference.
When Willa is kidnapped by her father’s old nemesis, Col. Steven J. Lockjaw, played by Sean Penn, Bob must reunite with his former revolutionaries — a life he thought he left behind 16 years ago — to rescue her.
A winding theme throughout the film is the generational gap between Bob and Willa — one a revolutionary trying to lay low, and the other a teenager who yearns for modernity. DiCaprio said one theme — Willa’s journey — helped Infiniti and him better understand their characters during their chemistry reads.
“He’s completely disconnected from her. He’s a disaster of a father, and then all of a sudden he’s put into this wild circumstance to try to save her,” DiCaprio said. “It’s just a beautiful bit of writing.”
Despite their generational disconnect, Bob’s past, as a member of the revolutionary group French 75, affects Willa’s present and future — an allusion to how trauma passes from one generation to the next.
“His past is coming back to haunt him, and now it’s passed on to the next generation,” DiCaprio said of his character. “I thought [Anderson] wrote a beautiful ending in that respect of what this next generation’s going to have to deal with.”
“One Battle After Another” spans multiple genres — action, thriller, comedy and political satire. But Regina Hall, who plays Deandra, one of Bob’s former French 75 allies, said Anderson covers a variety of themes that might normally contradict in a film.
“He can find humor in the absurdity in things,” Hall said. “It’s about love. It is about family. It doesn’t have to be blood family, although this one exists.”
For Teyana Taylor, tackling the emotional depth and physical challenges of the character made her feel like she “had a point to prove.” Sometimes, preparing for her role as Perfidia Beverly Hills, Willa’s mother, just meant showing up to the set ready to work.
“If everything is to be determined, and we figure it out when we get to set, then we just figure it out when we get to set,” Taylor said. “The best preparation is just being there and getting a beautiful shot.”
Flexibility was key to the final product, according to Director Anderson. One of his favorite details in the film — Taylor’s bandaged fingernail, which appears in her character’s solo promotional poster — was an unexpected “gift.”
“You’ve got to have a plan,” Anderson said. “But you have to be ready to receive and look for the opportunities, because they’re there in front of you if your eyes are open.”
