I became friends with Sam Smith out of a mutual admiration. I play a broken housewife in his video for ‘I’m Not the Only One’. I wore a beautiful light blue lacy vintage dress and spent the day crying with mascara running down my face, smoking, drinking and driving a car that belonged to Frank Sinatra.
After my first audition for Glee the producers asked whether I could ‘sex up my look’. It was like hearing nails on a chalkboard. ‘Sexy’ is a word I never equate with myself.
When I was at high school in San Francisco I looked completely different from my cheerleader character in Glee. I went through a rebellious punk stage in fishnets, acid-washed jeans and huge Skechers boots. I also dyed my hair red twice and both times it went orange.
I’ve seen a lot of leopard-print coats since I arrived in London. I bought one from Miu Miu with a huge hood, which I’ll wear to brunch on the weekend with a Wolford body and a Marc Jacobs plaid skirt. Then I’ll play ‘spot the leopard coat’ on my way home.
Walking through the Savage Beauty exhibition at the V&A took my breath away. I sat in the Cabinet of Curiosities room surrounded by McQueen’s designs as they spun around and felt like I was stuck in his brain.
I’ve had to research a lot for my part in the upcoming play about McQueen. There was so much criticism that dominated his existence as an artist. People saw his work as so masochistic and dark. I’ve never seen it that way. I look at his designs and see such supreme beauty.
I trained as a ballerina in pink pointe shoes, white tights, white crinoline under my tutu and a perfect bun — everything classic and pretty. But the perfection of the ballet world seemed unattainable and I found myself drawn to the macabre.
My mum was an amazing seamstress; she used to dress me in beautiful doll-style dresses with English smocking. After that I looked like a typical 1980s child in neon leggings, tie-dye shirts and pigtails.
I have too many boxes of clothes in my attic that I’m keeping just in case I have a daughter one day. There’s a green Carolina Herrera dress that I wore to my first Met Ball, a black leather lace-up Gucci top and another Herrera dress with mushrooms on it that looks like it’s straight out of Alice in Wonderland.
When I was eight I watched the film Sabrina and felt like the gangly, awkward girl that Audrey Hepburn plays at the beginning. Then, when she comes back from Paris and wears a beautiful black and white Givenchy dress, I thought that one day I might be able to wear something similar. Every time I dress up for a big event there’s a little girl in me screaming, ‘You did it!’
Dianna Agron stars in McQueen at St James Theatre from 12 May (0844 264 2140; mcqueentheplay.com)
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