
Teyana Taylor drew inspiration from Tupac Shakur’s complex and often debated persona for her role as Perfidia Beverly Hills in Paul Thomas Anderson’s gripping new film, One Battle After Another. The movie begins with a close-up of Perfidia as she surveys an immigration detention center on the U.S.-Mexico border. Perfidia is a key figure in the French 75, a radical left-wing group whose daring raid on the facility—and the consequences that follow—make up the first half-hour of the film. While the rest of the group focuses on helping immigrants escape, Leonardo DiCaprio’s character, a bomb expert nicknamed “Ghetto” Pat, creates a dramatic explosion to announce their revolution and, primarily, to get Perfidia’s attention. However, she’s distracted, keeping her gun trained on Colonel Steven J. Lockjaw (Sean Penn), the facility’s head officer. Lockjaw, with a voice reminiscent of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and a troubling interest in Perfidia, is portrayed as both a darkly comedic figure and a chilling representation of state-sanctioned violence.