Q228792

Biography

Dianna Elise Agron ( AY-gron; born April 30, 1986) is an American actress and singer. After early attention with recurring television roles, she had her breakthrough with her starring role as Quinn Fabray in the Fox musical comedy drama series Glee (2009–2015). Agron subsequently began working in film, first starring in the popular young adult adaptation I Am Number Four (2011) as Sarah Hart before taking on films aimed at more diverse audiences, including the 2013 mob-comedy The Family and 2015's Bare. She has also directed several short films and music videos and, in 2017, began performing as a singer at the Café Carlyle in New York City, while continuing to star in films including Novitiate and Hollow in the Land in 2017, Shiva Baby in 2020, and As They Made Us in 2022. She acted in and directed part of the 2019 anthology feature film Berlin, I Love You, and returned to television as the lead in the Netflix fantasy drama series The Chosen One (2023). Agron is Jewish and has spoken of how her religion relates to her career. She has also been involved with significant charity work, particularly in support of LGBTQ+ rights and human rights. Labeled a fashion icon, Agron's old Hollywood fashion style and appearance has garnered media attention.

== Early life == Dianna Elise Agron was born on April 30, 1986, in Savannah, Georgia, to Mary (née Barnes), a seamstress, and Ronald S. "Ron" Agron, a general manager of Hyatt hotels. Her father was born to a Jewish family, while her mother converted to Judaism before they married. Agron has a younger brother, Jason Agron, a photographer. She is Ashkenazi Jewish, of Ukrainian-Jewish descent; her father's family were Jewish immigrants from Novgorod-Seversky in Ukraine, and the family's original surname was Agronsky. She is distantly related to Gershon Agron and Martin Agronsky. Agron was raised in San Antonio, Texas, and Burlingame, California; her family lived in various hotels due to her father's career, but her mother made sure that Agron and her brother knew this was not the norm. Agron has said that there was always music from the 1960s and 1970s playing at their home, and that her mother sheltered her (though not her brother) from watching contemporary films and television even as a teenager, opting to let her watch mostly classic musicals because she felt they had "a certain amount of loveliness to [them]". Being exposed to the "fairytale" and "fantastical" image of Hollywood from these films influenced Agron's decision to pursue acting, while her interest in storytelling comes from seeing different lives unfold around her growing up in the "fishbowl environment" of hotels.

Agron lived in Texas from the age of two until she was nine, and took up dancing at the age of three, studying jazz and ballet, and later hip-hop dancing. She often performed in local and school musical theater productions, including as Dorothy Gale in The Wizard of Oz when she was eight. She attended Hebrew school growing up and was educated at a Jewish day school through third grade. She was bullied harshly for her Jewish faith while living in Texas and noted that she assumed having police guarding their Temple was normal until the family moved to California, adding that being Jewish was a large part of her identity as a child because of how it ostracized her. When the family moved to California, Agron attended Lincoln Elementary School, Burlingame Intermediate School, and Burlingame High School in the Bay Area; she attended religious school and had her bat mitzvah at the Reform Judaism-practicing Peninsula Temple Sholom. She said that she found it much easier to make friends there than she had in Texas, though she described her middle school experience as sometimes unpleasant, giving the example of a boy following her around and calling her a man when, aged thirteen, her voice dropped significantly. This gave her a complex about how her voice sounded and she avoided speaking and singing in her natural register for a long time, though she overcame this and credits it with giving her a thick skin. In high school, Agron was on the homecoming court in both her junior and senior years, tying for homecoming queen with a friend; she has said she was not "popular" in a stereotypical sense in high school, but had many friends in different groups. She was involved in school theater, performing in Vanities and Grease as a senior, and helping with set design, costumes, and painting. Agron has broken her nose twice. The first break occurred when she was fourteen, but she did not have it repaired until it was damaged again on a day off during the Glee tour. She was also injured in a traffic collision and underwent physical therapy in high school. As a teenager, Agron was a dance teacher and worked at a local boutique, Morning Glory, where she "became enthralled with fashion". Though her mother dressed her in doll-style dresses, she began experimenting with fashion in high school. She took piano lessons and said that she came to love photography in high school, as well, where she learnt on film. When she was a teenager, her father became ill with the stroke disorder CADASIL. The family thought it was multiple sclerosis after tests proved indefinitive; Agron was not made aware of his illness until she was fifteen, when he had a stroke and began losing his cognitive and physical abilities. She spoke to Cosmopolitan about the impact of this on her family, which caused her parents' marriage to fall apart, saying the separation was devastating for her and her brother. She added that she "had to play therapist to [her] family[,] be the glue". She later said that, when her father became ill, he "lost his faith for some time" and the family stopped attending Temple.

== Career ==

=== 2006–2008: Early career and Heroes === Agron moved to Los Angeles in 2005, attending an audition for a dance agency on the same day. She had wanted to go to New York, but instead chose Los Angeles as it was closer to her family in case she needed to support them. She was signed by the agency and told them that she wanted to be in musicals; they sent her out for music video auditions. Agron was hesitant to be in music videos, worrying that she could not be considered both a dancer and an actress, though she agreed to be in the video for Robin Thicke's "Wanna Love You Girl"; she was cut when Pharrell Williams became involved and the concept was changed. Her dance agency helped her find an acting agent and she again requested to be considered for musicals, which she was told were too outdated. When she moved to Los Angeles she also began to watch movies other than old musicals; after watching 2001 and A Clockwork Orange back-to-back she was pleasantly surprised at how much more scope there was available as an actor. From 2006 to 2008 she appeared on television series including Shark, Close to Home, Drake & Josh, CSI: NY and Numbers. Her first film role was an uncredited appearance as a cheerleader in the 2006 remake film When a Stranger Calls. Agron told Rolling Stone that during her early career most of the film roles she was offered were horror films or nudity, and that she turned down all of these. She instead appeared in comedy films like Skid Marks and Rushers, which won the short film audience award at the 2007 Method Fest, and the action-thriller film T.K.O.. She had a recurring role in the third season of Veronica Mars as Jenny Budosh, a student in Veronica's criminology class at college who is also involved with a fraud cover-up. During her early years in Los Angeles, Agron lived in the same building as Christina McDowell and Emma Stone, which was once raided by a SWAT team, and spent time with them and other "young artists and starlets" in the neighborhood, including Lindsay Lohan and Amanda Bynes. In 2007 she played the main role of Harper in the Milo Ventimiglia-directed MTV series It's a Mall World, alongside Sam Huntington, for its single season. She then appeared in a recurring role for the second season of Heroes as Debbie Marshall, the mean captain of the cheerleading squad at the new school Claire Bennet attends. Initially, she read for the nice cheerleader role, as she had previously been typecast as the "nice girl", but a producer thought it would be more interesting to see her play a mean character. She said that when she was cast in the role it "helped open a lot of people's eyes to [her], as an actor", because it is different to who she is as a person. During the 2007–2008 writers' strike, when auditions stopped, Agron wrote a feature screenplay about a 28-year-old man and his relationships with different women in his life as he learns how to say "I love you", which was optioned in 2008; Agron had wanted to direct the film.

=== 2009–2011: Glee, I Am Number Four and early film roles ===

Agron landed her breakthrough role in 2009 as Quinn Fabray on the Fox musical comedy-drama series Glee. Media journalist Jon Caramanica described the character in April 2010 as a "conniving though angelic-seeming cheerleader". Agron was the last principal actor to be cast, having won the role only days before the pilot began filming; struggling to cast Quinn, the producers were going to remove the character, but Fox wanted to keep her in the pilot and casting director Robert J. Ulrich convinced them to let him see more auditions. The producers had felt the character would be unnecessary if she could not be given more depth, though they did not initially reveal this to Agron; Ulrich told Variety that when they saw her audition, the show finally "came together". Shortly before Glee, Agron had over thirty unsuccessful auditions for a small role in a musical, and so auditioned with no expectations. In her audition she sang Frank Sinatra's "Fly Me to the Moon". Before offering her the part, the production worried she would appear too innocent and asked her to come back looking sexier; she later said that this request "was like hearing nails on a chalkboard." Of Agron's casting, showrunner Ryan Murphy said: "she ruined the part for me... she humanized it. She can cry at the drop of a hat. So now her character has a conscience, a soul and great vulnerability." Agron's portrayal of Quinn was praised, and she made her musical debut at the end of the second episode, "Showmance", performing Dionne Warwick's "I Say a Little Prayer". In 2009, members of the Glee cast, including Agron, performed the national anthem before Game 3 of the World Series. During the hiatus away from filming Glee in the summer of 2009, Agron wrote, starred in, directed, and executive-produced an unreleased short comedy film called A Fuchsia Elephant. The plot revolves around Agron's character, Charlotte Hill, who recreates her eighth birthday party with her friend Michael, played by Dave Franco, also a producer, on the day before she turns eighteen. She directed the 2010 music video for "Body" by Thao & The Get Down Stay Down, and took on more film roles in 2010 and 2011 with various supporting parts, including Natalie in Burlesque and the cheerleader Samantha in Bold Native, an animal liberation terror film. Agron had played multiple "mean cheerleader" roles, and when she began to be offered more during Glee's first season she asked her team to start turning them away. Agron was positioned as a top choice for the role of Gwen Stacy in the reboot of the Spider-Man films when The Amazing Spider-Man began casting in 2010, but lost out to Emma Stone. Deadline reported there were concerns about the availability of Agron, who tested for the role just as Glee's second season began, due to having a large role on a major network show. In 2011 she tested for the part of Lois Lane in the DC Extended Universe film Man of Steel, though there were concerns that she was too young for the role; it went to Amy Adams.

During Glee's second season, Emily St. James for The A.V. Club wrote that Agron was "one of the show's best actors" but often sidelined. In the episode "Born This Way" she performed a duet with Lea Michele (as Rachel Berry) of "I Feel Pretty" from West Side Story and TLC's "Unpretty". The Observer named this the best Glee cover, praising Agron's "soft and comforting vocals" and saying that as "a cult favorite of Glee fans in 2020, this one deserves all the hype even outside the show's kitschy walls." The song has been highly praised and was voted the best Glee number in a 2011 TVLine fan vote elimination bracket. Murphy has also said it was his favorite cover from the show. As a costume and extreme makeup lover, Agron has highlighted parts of this season as her favorite moments of the show, naming "The Rocky Horror Glee Show", particularly "Time Warp", and the performance of "Thriller", though she was the cause for a brief delay in filming of the latter number when she became ill in December 2010. On Glee, Quinn often sang as a soprano, which Agron said "was on the highest part of [her] vocal register that [she] can access ... but it's not where [she feels] the most confident and comfortable". Agron rarely sang in her chest voice in the first season, and in 2011 HuffPost described Quinn's singing register as falsetto. Agron suggested that Quinn having a high voice may have been her fault, as she had auditioned using a higher speaking voice to reflect her character's young age and personality, saying: "[Quinn] sees herself as having to be elite and perfect, so I didn't see her with this [Agron's] raspy voice." She struggled to maintain the affected voice in Glee's second season, and changed it for the third. In 2011, Agron wrote the Time 100 entry for her Glee co-star Chris Colfer. Her breakthrough movie role came in the 2011 YA adaptation I Am Number Four as co-lead Sarah Hart, whom Agron described as an "artsy kid that is a little misunderstood". Agron took on the role because it was different to her Quinn character, and said that while she wanted to work during the Glee hiatus, she would not take just any project that fit in her schedule because "it's so hard as an actor to really engage with a character and a script if you don't love it". Her filming restrictions for Glee meant she almost did not get the role. The shoot got moved to the summer, when Agron was available, and she learned she got the role a few weeks before filming. Photography began in Pittsburgh in the summer of 2010, the day after the first Glee tour finished. Reviews for the film were mixed. Agron's I Am Number Four co-lead was Alex Pettyfer; after Pettyfer dropped out of playing Tom in Seventh Son in May 2011, Agron tested for the role of Alice Deane.