In Sunday night's episode of HBO's "Girls," Allison Williams' character, Marnie, reveals she wants to become a singer.
As it turns out, Williams — the daughter of NBC news anchor Brian Williams — happens to actually have a very good voice and it's what got her hired on the show in the first place.
In October 2012, Williams performed and recorded (in a single take) a twist on the "Mad Men" instrumental theme song set to the lyrics from "Nature Boy" and posted it to YouTube.
Luckily for Williams — then a Yale graduate just starting her career as an actress in Los Angeles — "Girls" Executive producer Judd Apatow is a huge fan of "Mad Men" and was responsible for one of the over 900K hits the video has accrued on YouTube.
"I thought she would be the perfect counterpoint to Lena," Apatow told the L.A. Times in a recent feature on the actress. "A girl who seems to have it all figured out who is classically beautiful and wound a little tight."
However, "Girls" creator Lena Dunham wasn't as easily convinced.
"I thought 'gorgeous voice, great hair, what else is new in Hollywood,'" Dunham wrote via email to the newspaper. "I had to meet Allison to understand just how cheeky and intelligent that video really was, and just why Judd felt so strongly about her."
Watch the video that finally convinced Dunham and Apatow to cast Williams in "Girls" below:
Just two short years ago, Williams was posting numerous videos of herself acting and singing on YouTube to gain exposure.
"It's the new way of getting seen," Williams explained to the Times. "And I didn't want to not be ready when I could finally try out for the bigger stuff."
Williams' parents made her graduate from college before she was allowed to pursue acting. So during her summer breaks, she worked as Tina Fey's assistant and was a production assistant on Robert Altman's last movie, "A Prairie Home Companion."
"I wanted to learn the technical side of lighting and sound because, again, I wasn't allowed to start acting until I graduated college," she continued. "I wanted to know the drill. I wanted the first time I went on-set to act to be totally stressless, except for the acting."
In the meantime, she joined Yale's improv group, Just Add Water, and got her screen time by appearing in Web shorts.
In January 2010, Williams recorded this slower, ironic version of Ke$ha's song "Tik Tok," which currently has over 6.6 million hits on YouTube.
Watch below:
Williams also wrote and starred in a series of FunnyorDie videos, in which she played Kate Middleton.
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