She realized that law was not the career that she wanted. "I hated every minute practicing law," she admitted to "Essence" in 2003. In the 1980s, she worked as a legal consulatant, a freelance writer, and for the 1988 presidential campaign of Michael Dukakis, nominee of the Democratic Party. In the late 1980s, Chase became involved with the film business and left Houston for Columbia Pictures in Los Angeles, California. She was selected for a spot in its executive-training program. Chase was later promoted to become an executive assistant to Frank Price, the top executive with the studio. After she worked up the courage to speak to actor Denzel Washington at Columbia studios, he suggested they set up a meeting. Later, Washington hired Chase to run his production company, Mundy Lane Entertainment, where she stayed from 1992-1995. She worked with Washington to executive produce "", a two-hour documentary on the baseball legend, which aired on the TBS Superstation in April 1995. The film was nominated for an Academy Award and an Emmy. It won a Peabody Award, the Crystal Heart Award from the Heartland Film Festival, and was voted Best Documentary by the National Association of Minorities in Cable. Chase was one of the executive producers of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s "Cinderella", which aired in November 1997 on ABC’s "The Wonderful World of Disney" and stars Brandy, Whitney Houston and Whoopi Goldberg. The television musical was watched by more than 60 million viewers. It was nominated for seven Emmys and won the Emmy in the category of Art Production. In 2001, partnering with Disney, Chase produced a movie hit with "The Princess Diaries". Starring Julie Andrews and Anne Hathaway, the movie grossed more than $108 million in domestic box office receipts and sold over 17 million video and DVD units. She also produced "The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement". Her work with "Princess Diaries" was designed to make "Every girl, and the girl in every woman, [wish] that she would wake up one day and find out that she’s a princess." (Alexander, 497) Chase inspires young girls to believe they have the power to do what they want to do. In the summer of 2005, Chase produced a movie for Alcon Entertainment and Warner Bros. titled "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants", based on the book by Ann Brashares, starring America Ferrera, Blake Lively, Amber Tamblyn, and Alexis Bledel.