A Fuchsia Elephant

Dianna Elise Agron ( ; born April 30, 1986) is an American actress and singer. Her work spans screen and stage, and her accolades include a Screen Actors Guild Award and nomination for a Brit Award. Agron began acting in small theater productions in her youth, before making her screen debut in 2006. 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'' (20092015).

After her breakthrough success in ''Glee'', Agron began working more 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 widespread 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 Russian-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 hem. 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, as well as being 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 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 erfamily 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 er 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'' 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'' 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'' 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 ervocal register that hecan access ... but it's not where he feelsthe 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: " uinnsees herself as having to be elite and perfect, so I didn't see her with this gron'sraspy voice." She struggled to maintain the affected voice in ''Glee'' 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.

In the third season of ''Glee'', Agron sang her first solo number since the first season, " Never Can Say Goodbye" by the Jackson 5. The song, which had been leaked before the episode, received positive reviews. The character's stories in this season were less well-received, with reviews employing humor to say that the writing did not provide Agron with strong material. In one story, her character was paralyzed in a car accident, but only for four episodes before she was performing again; Agron had previously said that the story, which she discussed with Murphy, would be "slow and gradual" as Quinn struggles through accepting a more challenging situation. In 2019, ''The Guardian'' termed the brief paralysis, and the related "cringe-inducing" performance of " I'm Still Standing", as the show's "defining shark-jumping moment", though critics praised Agron's acting. Speaking to MTV following the car accident episode, Agron said that she had "fun challenges" playing Quinn who "always was changing". After the third season aired, Agron appeared as a guest mentor on '' The Glee Project'' second season episode "Actability".

Several songs performed by Agron as Quinn have been released as singles, made available for digital download, and featured on the show's soundtrack albums. Many songs performed on ''Glee'' were pop music, including several by Agron, though she was also noted as the show's easy listening vocalist, performing some Motown. "I Say a Little Prayer" charted in the UK Singles Chart at 125, and her cover of the Supremes' "You Keep Me Hangin' On" reached 166 on the UK Singles. These songs were released on '' Glee: The Music, Volume 1'' (the former as an iTunes bonus track), which was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Compilation Soundtrack for Visual Media. Caramanica criticized the fact that Agron's cover of "Papa Don't Preach" was omitted from the soundtracks, writing that it was "one of the most grounded and moving covers the show has yet done". "Papa Don't Preach" was later released as a single, charting at 81 on the UK Singles, as was "It's a Man's Man's Man's World", which charted in the Canadian Hot 100 at 73, UK Singles Chart at 94 and on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 at 95. Her cover of "Never Can Say Goodbye" reached 107 on the ''Billboard'' charts. As a featured singer in the cast of ''Glee'', Agron and her castmates hold numerous accolades: in 2010 they won an American Music Award, and in 2011 they were collectively nominated for two Grammy Awards as well as the Brit Award for International Breakthrough Act of the year. In 2012, they received another soundtrack album Grammy nomination. By the start of the sixth season they were the most-charting (''Billboard'') act in history, a record held until March 2020.

2012–2014: ''The Family'' and music videos

Agron appeared less frequently in ''Glee''s fourth season, being reduced to a guest star, with co-star Naya Rivera saying that she did so by choice to work on other projects; Rivera and Agron shared an argument scene in the Thanksgiving episode that ''Vulture'' said was "weirdly powerful", noting the pair "have always popped in scenes like this, and have never gotten enough of them". Agron tweeted that the scene was one of her favorites, and Murphy joked that the two characters could have a spin-off. After reducing her role on ''Glee'', Agron became the first of the cast to "cut out on her own", playing Belle Blake in Luc Besson's ultra-violent 2013 mob comedy film '' The Family'' opposite Robert De Niro, Tommy Lee Jones, and Michelle Pfeiffer. Besson reportedly wrote Belle with Agron in mind, wanting her to be in the film after seeing her perform on ''Glee''. The ''Irish Independent'' wrote that "Agron is one of the best things in the film ndsuccessfully grounds the more preposterous aspects of the plot". It opened to mixed reviews but, also seen as the breakout performer by the then-CEO of production company EuropaCorp, critics praised Agron's performance and she was nominated for a Women Film Critics Circle Award.

Later in 2013 she appeared in the music video for the Killers' tenth-anniversary track " Just Another Girl", portraying the lead singer, Brandon Flowers. ''Rolling Stone'' said that even with the real Flowers also appearing, "Agron shines as the video's star." She briefly appeared in the fifth season of ''Glee'' for the 100th episode, and was notably absent from " The Quarterback", the tribute episode for Cory Monteith. In 2014, Agron starred as the scorned bride in Sam Smith's " I'm Not the Only One" music video. '' Glamour'' wrote that Agron's "convincing ''Desperate Housewives'' act howsoff some major acting skills ndreally brings Sam's heart wrenching pop-ballad to life". She also directed the music video for "Till Sunrise" by Goldroom, starring Gabrielle Haugh and her brother Jason, and worked as a photographer with Jason for the February 2014 issue of ''Galore'' magazine. In 2015, she directed a short film for the opening of designer Tory Burch's Paris flagship store; she was also selected by Burch to represent the brand at that year's Met Gala. Agron returned to ''Glee'' for its final season but did not appear in the episode " A Wedding", when Quinn's best friends get married, which was seen to be equally as unusual as missing "The Quarterback".

2015–2019: Independent film, singing, and directing

After ''Glee'', Agron pursued what critic Frank Scheck would later describe as "admirably adventurous screen choices". In 2017 she said that she had "wanted to return to doing indie films fter ''Glee'' and ''The Family'' and found a lot of solace in doing so", explaining in 2022 that she "purposely had to recalibrate after hewas fully off of that show, and make time for erself.. after so many years of not having any control ndjust not einga person in erown world". She played the lead role in Natalia Leite's 2015 drama film '' Bare'', which follows Agron's character, Sarah, as she becomes romantically involved with a female drifter. The film includes a nude scene, which had been extensively discussed between Leite and Agron, taking inspiration from '' My Summer of Love'' for the tone. Agron also made her professional theater debut in 2015. Turning down a Broadway play as she wanted to create a role, she played Dahlia in '' McQueen'' at the St. James Theatre on the West End; ''McQueen'' received generally negative reviews, and, in her PhD thesis for York University, Rebecca Halliday noted that reviews were not just profusely critical towards Agron's performance but also harsh on the actress herself. Agron was unable to reprise her role for the Theatre Royal Haymarket transfer due to filming commitments. She performed the U.S. national anthem in London at Winfield House, the U.S. ambassador's residence, for Independence Day 2015, with Katherine Jenkins

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