Dianna Agron wanted a "riskier" role, according to director Natalia Leite.
The 29-year-old American actress accepted the role in ‘Bare’, which sees her play stripper Sarah Barton, because she wanted to shed the cheerleader stereotype she gained from starring as Quinn Fabray in ‘Glee’ for six years, and experiment with other acting roles.
Speaking to Refinery29.com about casting the blonde beauty for the role, the screenwriter for the production said: "I think she was in the right place for it. I think she had been doing ‘Glee’ for so many years and – as happens to any actors that are on a TV show for so long – you kind of just get typecast, you get put in this box of ‘Oh, she’s the cheerleader from Glee, the cute blonde girl’.
"She has a lot more layers to her than that, so she wanted a role that was riskier and that was challenging her acting.
"I think ‘Bare’ came along just at the right time."
Natalia admitted Dianna’s talent and brave work ethic whilst filming the romantic drama surprised her.
She explained: "Dianna blew my mind. She showed up the night before our first day of shooting, at like 9pm, and we had to be at 7am shooting the first scene the next morning. And I told her, "I really want you to get into this character fast." So we went to the house of one of the strippers who actually worked at the club – because she had a bunch of wigs and outfits. Her name’s Kelly and she made up Dianna to look… different from Dianna. And she went into the club on a night that nobody knew we were there and pretended to be one of the girls.
"She was so fearless."