Dianna Agron: Forever young

The stunning blonde is 27, yet she still gets jobs playing teenagers.

The US actress, who broke out as snarky high school cheerleader Quinn Fabray in the hit TV series Glee, played a student in 2011's I Am Number Four and is doing so again in her latest flick, We're A Nice Normal Family.

Opening here today, the action comedy sees Agron playing Belle, the teen daughter of a mafia family - Hollywood veterans Robert De Niro and Michelle Pfeiffer play her parents - that has been relocated to the rural French area of Normandy while under witness protection.

Belle may look all pretty and innocent, but she has a brutal streak and has no qualms re-arranging her classmate's face just for taking her pencil case.

Can you tell us more about your character Belle?

She's a typical teenager in the sense that she wants to fall in love and discover herself.

She's very mature, steadfast, observant at times and yet can be a daydreamer at other moments. On the other hand, she's also not your average teen, having grown up in a family where violence is prevalent.

She's loves her parents, but she's very much a daddy's girl and is very proud of her father. There's a moment when he expresses that he's sorry for the way things have turned out, and she refuses that because for her, he's everything.

Did the movie remind you of any mobster movies?

Every movie that deals with the mafia is going to remind somebody of another mafia movie. What I liked about this is that there's violence, action and there's definitely the thriller throughout, but it's very different in that you don't often see families involved in witness protection programmes! I wondered why it hadn't been done before. I was really keen on the idea of playing that.

How was it like working with director Luc Besson?

For someone who's been doing this for so long, he's still very passionate about his work.

Some people lose their passion for things very quickly, especially if they have success. Luc's like a kid in the candy or toy shop, and so everyone on set wants to work hard and have an outstanding finished product.

What about working with John D'Leo, who plays your brother?

John and I immediately felt like brother and sister. The first day I met him, we were doing make-up tests and I came up and gave him a hug. We kept talking for a while and he went "What are you doing on this movie? Are you hair? Or make-up?" and I said to him "I'm your sister!"

And he turned bright red! That automatically put us in that space of banter because I teased him for that, especially as we were there two weeks before the main cast came on set. So we had a lot of time to mess around and get into that headspace. I have a younger brother myself and so I'm very fond of playing the older sister. It's very easy for me.

■ Interview transcript courtesy of Golden Village Films

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