page_title: Dianna Agron
section_title: 2009–2011: Success with Glee and film breakthrough
hierarchical_section_title: Dianna Agron / Career / 2009–2011: Success with Glee and film breakthrough
caption_attribution_description: English: Actress Dianna Agron at premiere party of TV series Glee, Santa Monica, California. depicted person: Dianna Agron (age: 23.03)
context_page_description: Dianna Elise Agron is an American actress, singer and dancer. In 2006, Agron made her television debut as Jessica Grant on CSI: NY, before having small roles on television, such as Lexi in Drake and Josh. From 2006 to 2007, Agron had recurring roles on Veronica Mars as Jenny Budosh and Heroes as Debbie Marshall. In 2009, Agron was cast as Quinn Fabray on the Fox musical comedy-drama series Glee.
  Agron has appeared in the films The Hunters, I Am Number Four, The Family, Zipper, Bare, and Novitiate.
context_section_description: She landed her breakthrough role in 2009 as Quinn Fabray, a high school cheerleader, on the Fox comedy-drama series Glee. Agron was the last primary actor to be cast, having won the role only days before the pilot began filming: she said in a 2009 interview that she "nearly bailed on [her] audition for the show [because she] was so nervous". She auditioned with Frank Sinatra's "Fly Me to the Moon". Before being cast as Quinn, the show's producers wondered if she appeared too innocent, and Agron explained that "they told [her] to come back with straight hair and to dress sexier", which landed her the part. Quinn is described by Agron as Rachel Berry's (Lea Michele) enemy, and "terrible, the meanest girl". The character was originally conceived as the antagonistic queen bee head cheerleader, a departure from Agron's actual high school experience. Of Agron's casting, showrunner Ryan Murphy said: "When we cast Dianna as Quinn, she ruined the part for me. She was supposed to be the [...] cunt, so to speak, but she humanized it. She can cry at the drop of a hat. So now her character has a conscience, a soul and great vulnerability." The role saw Agron nominated for the Teen Choice Award for Female Breakout Star in 2010. She and the other cast members were awarded the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series in 2010, and were nominated in the same category the following year. 
  During the hiatus between filming Glee in the summer of 2009, Agron wrote, starred in, directed, and executive-produced a short comedy film called A Fuchsia Elephant. The plot revolves around Agron's character, Charlotte Hill. On the day before her eighteenth birthday, Charlotte makes a decision to change. Not wanting to follow in the footsteps of her alcoholic mother, she enlists a sober partner named Michael, played by Dave Franco, to help guide her. In 2010 Agron hosted her first mini music festival, for 826LA, called "Chickens in Love". 
  Off the back of her success as a main character in Glee, Agron took on more film roles. In 2010, she appeared in the supporting role of Minnow Hayes in the romantic comedy The Romantics. That same year, she played Natalie in the musical drama film Burlesque. She also appeared in Bold Native, a film about animal liberation. She auditioned for the role of Gwen Stacy for the reboot of the Spider-Man films, The Amazing Spider-Man, but came second to Emma Stone. In 2011, she played Alice in the horror thriller The Hunters, and Sarah Hart in the YA adaptation I Am Number Four. Agron appeared in the concert film of Glee, Glee: The 3D Concert Movie. She also took on another directing job with the 2010 music video for "Body" by Thao & The Get Down Stay Down. 
  With the cast of Glee incorporating more main characters, and as Agron took more time for film roles, her character performed less songs after the first season. In season three, Agron sang her first solo number since the first season, "Never Can Say Goodbye" by The Jackson 5, which received mostly positive reviews. Jen Chaney of The Washington Post gave the song a "B-", and said it "worked much better than every track that preceded it" because it adapted the song to the show "instead of trying to out-Jackson Jackson." Entertainment Weekly's Joseph Brannigan Lynch called it "a nice summation of her character's journey, but not vocally impressive enough to justify listening to outside of the episode" and gave it a "B" rating. Crystal Bell of HuffPost TV described it as a "blah performance", but Kate Stanhope of TV Guide said it was "sweet and reflective." Erica Futterman of Rolling Stone wrote that it was "a tune well-suited for Quinn's sultry voice and the flipped meaning she gives the lyrics", and TVLine's Michael Slezak had a similar take: he gave it an "A" rating and called it a "remarkably lovely fit" for her voice.
caption: At the Glee premiere party, May 2009
exif: {"Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon VIXIA HF100", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "180", "Image YResolution": "180", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Picasa 3.0", "Image DateTime": "2009:05:11 22:41:28", "Image ExifOffset": "194", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/24", "EXIF FNumber": "9/5", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2009:05:11 18:41:58", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2009:05:11 18:41:58", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "-1/2", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire", "EXIF FocalLength": "24/5", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1042", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1594", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "128000/13", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "128000/13", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Bracket", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF ImageUniqueID": "34719e11264ad3b90be330ea11be48f6"}