Birth Name: Dianna Elise Agron Birth Place: Savannah, Georgia, U.S. Date of Birth: April 30, 1986 Height: 5′ 5½” (1.66 m) Mother: Mary Agron Father: Ronald Agron Siblings: Jason Agron

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Dianna Elise Agron was born April 30th 1986 in Savannah, Georgia to parents Ron and Mary Agron. She was raised in San Antonio, Texas, and San Francisco, California, but her family moved around a lot during her upbringing. Her father worked in the hotel business, as a general manager of Hyatt hotels, which had their family move around between different hotels. With her father being born to a Jewish family, and her mother a convert after meeting Ronald, Dianna and her brother Jason were both raised Jewish. Their family name origin from “Agronsky”, and her paternal ancestors were Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. Both Dianna and Jason attended Hebrew School and had a Bat Mitzvah.

Dianna early learned she had a love for the performing arts, and spent a lot of her time growing up performing. She started taking jazz and ballet lessons at the early age of three, and eventually moved on to hip-hop dancing as well. After a few years with dance performances, she realized she wanted to try out acting as well. In fifth grade, she was a part of the school production of “The Wizard of OZ“, where she played Dorothy Gale. She then fell in love with musical theater, and performed in both local and school productions over the years. While at Burlingame High school, she participated in numerous plays – such as “Grease“, where she played Marty. Dianna graduated from Burlingame with honors, and was in the Homecoming Court at the school. While she states she was never a popular girl in high school alike many of her TV characters, she had a great time at the school. “I definitely was not a cool girl, but I had a lot of friends. I was on the yearbook staff, I did drama, I did ballet after school. It’s interesting, because I look at pictures and I’m like, ‘We weren’t that dorky,’ but we were at heart. We were good girls, and we would have fun just sneaking to the park and throwing water balloons at each other. I lived just south of San Francisco, and in 15 minutes you could be in the city, but we weren’t interested in that. We were interested in our youth and getting into that fun.”

After graduating from high school, Dianna moved to Los Angeles in 2004 to pursue a career as a professional actor. As like many young adults with a dream of getting into the acting buisness, it wasn’t all fun and games at first. She eventually managed to land a small part in a TV movie called “After Midnight: Life in Bars” in 2006, and appeared in a total of 4 guest episodes during October and November that same year – as a drunk girl at a party in “Close To Home“, as Jessica Grant in an episode of “CSI: NY“, as Lexi in “Drake & Josh” and as Gia Mellon in “Shark“. In 2007 her career was slowly starting to take off, after she won a recurring role on the popular TV show “Veronica Mars“. After her time on the show, Dianna went on to star in a 13 episodes long TV short film for MTV titled “It’s a Mall World“, directed by “Heroes” actor Milo Ventimiglia. Following her role in “It’s a Mall World“, she was cast for a recurring storyline in “Heroes” as Debbie Marshall, the captain of the cheerleading squad at Costa Verde High School. She also appeared in supporting roles in the films “T.K.O” and “Skid Marks” in 2007, before she got a part as a guest character in “Numb3rs” in 2008.

In 2009, Dianna won the role which would drastically change her life over night – the part of Quinn Fabray in Fox comedy-drama series “Glee“. She was cast only a few days before the shooting of the pilot, after being sure she would lose out on the part due to the producer thinking she appeared too innocent. “They told me to come back with straight hair and to dress sexier. Later that week, I started work.” Dianna auditioned with Frank Sinatra’s “Fly me To the moon”, but said in an early interview that “I nearly bailed on my audition for the show. I was so nervous”. Quinn was the exact opposite of the person Dianna was in high school herself, created to be the antagonistic queen bee head cheerleader. The role gained her a string of awards and nominations, both alone and as a part of the ensemble, such as a nomination for the Teen Choice Award for Female Breakout Star in 2010. Dianna stayed on the show as a main actress until 2012, when it was announced on July 23rd that she would appear as just a guest star in the upcoming fourth season of the show. She returned for three episodes in season 4 – “Thanksgiving”, “Naked” and “I Do”, two episodes in Season 5 – “100” and “New Directions”, and then three episodes in the final season – “Homecoming”, “Jagged Little Tapestry” and a small cameo in the series finale “Dreams Come True”.

While still being on Glee, Dianna’s film career started to take off. She won a supporting role as Minnow Hayes in the 2010 film “The Romantics“, where she got to act alongside well established actors and actresses such as Katie Holmes, Josh Duhamel, Anna PAquin, Malin Akerman, Adam Brody and Candice Bergan. She then had minor parts in “Burlesque” and “Bold Native” that same year. Later in 2010, Dianna was cast for the role as Sarah in “I Am Number Four”. DreamWorks went through multiple rounds of tests to find the right actress for the female romantic lead without finding their perfect girl, but Dianna landed the role after a meeting with the executive producer Steven Spielberg at a charity event. Due to a filming schedule clash with Glee it first seemed impossible for Dianna to fit it in, but when the schedules were changed she was able to accept the part after all. Filming went on between 17 May 2010 and 17 August 2010, and Dianna fitted in the film promotion tour in-between the award season with Glee early 2011. With Glee having made her world famous pretty much overnight, Dianna was now a desired actress for film makers. She was cast as the female lead in “The Hunters” 2011, as Belle Blake in “The Family” in 2013, and “Zipper“, “Tumbledown” and “Bare” in 2015. She then took a break in 2015 to make her professional stage debut in a play based on the life of the designer Alexander McQueen, titled “McQueen“. The play ran from May 12th to June 6th at London’s St. James Theatre, before moving to the West End Theatre – this time without Dianna, who was unable to reprise her role due to filming commitments. 2016 then became a big year for Dianna on the private front, as she married her boyfriend Winston Marshall, from the band Mumford & Sons, in Morocco on October 15.

Whilst working on her acting projects, Dianna has devoted much of her spare time on charitable work. She has been a longtime and avid supporter of PETA, and been a vocal ally for the LGBT movement. In 2012, Dianna visited the Kompong Cham Center with the Somaly Mam Foundation, where she met both children and teenage residents to see for herself the great work the foundation was doing. For her birthday in 2013, her fans honored her by raising $10,200 for the organization, as help in their effort to fight human trafficking. She has also done work for 826LA, Young Storytellers Foundation, Camp Wonder, United Service Organizations, War Child and Unicef, as well as having donated a truck worth of her possessions to Vietnam Veterans of America. In May 2016, she visited resettled Syrian refugees in Europe to create awareness of the devastating effects of the civil war that is still going on in Syria.

2017 became a big year for Dianna, with the releases of both “Novitiate” and “Hollow in The Land“. “Novitiate” was featured at film festivals all through the year, with Dianna being in attendance at both the Sundance and the Toronto International Film Festival. The year also saw the release of her crime thriller “The Crash“, with Frank Grillo, Minnie Driver, AnnaSophia Robb, Ed Westwick and more. Dianna now have three upcoming projects, all set to be released in 2018/2019 – “Headlock” as Tess Chandler, “Berlin, I Love You” and “The Laureate” as Laura Riding.

Biography written by Dianna Agron Heaven. Last updated September 1st, 2018.