‘Tyrant’ actress Moran Atias has an intense ambition to succeed

On a layover in Paris not long ago, Moran Atias stood in lines and jostled for a seat on the bus like any other schlub. No one bowed or averted their eyes. The royal guard was nowhere to be found. It all seemed quite curious. And in a moment of despair only a deposed queen could appreciate, Atias whispered to herself: “I want to go back to my palace.”

The palace in question looms over the FX series “Tyrant” in which Atias, an Israeli actress, plays the impeccably accessorized, politically cunning first lady of a fictional Middle East nation that is as dysfunctional as any real one. She has also portrayed an Albanian Gypsy and an ex-Orthodox stripper in a career that has won her praise but has yet to spark the kind of recognition that would keep her from waiting for audition calls.

“When does the auditioning stop?” she said, half in jest on a cloudy morning at the Beverly Hills Public Library. She slipped through the stacks, running her fingers over bindings while researching a film she wants to make about an Israeli criminologist who has investigated militants and would-be Palestinian suicide bombers.

“A good book on terrorism,” she said, “that’s my ‘Fifty Shades of Grey.’”

Most actors are passionate about their calling, but Atias runs on a potent blend of perfectionism and unsheathed ambition. Her unplanned road to Hollywood began along the sea in northern Israel. Meningitis after high school kept her from serving a two-year military stint mandatory for Israelis. She moved from Haifa to Milan, Italy, and became a successful model and a presenter — the sexy, singing, dancing sidekick of variety TV shows. That was too frivolous, and fashion designer Domenico Dolce urged her toward film.

She gave up big paychecks and enrolled in acting classes. She worked in several Italian movies — “I got paid exactly two shekels for one part” — and decided to move to Hollywood seven years ago, hoping her international background would lead to work. On the flight to the U.S., she watched “Crash,” Paul Haggis’ Academy Award-winning film about racial tensions in Los Angeles.

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“Here’s the American dream from my perspective,” she said. “I’m on a plane leaving Italy, a country that has been very good to me. I have all my stuff. And I see ‘Crash.’ I was so moved by it. I said I want to be that type of actress. It doesn’t matter the size of the role I get to play but that I get to participate in stories so meaningful.”

She landed and went after Haggis with a sniper’s precision. She won the part of Inez, an erotic spitfire, in the Starz TV series “Crash,” which was based on the film. Haggis was impressed by her range and cast her in “The Next Three Days,” a thriller starring Russell Crowe. She later pitched the director on a film idea about interlocking tales of love, trust, deception and forgiveness. That became last year’s “Third Person.” Atias lobbied hard for the memorable part of the Gypsy, Monika.

“Moran is relentless in pursuit of her craft,” said Haggis. Atias, 34, was virtually unknown to American audiences and Haggis had thought of going with a brand name, notably Penelope Cruz, to play alongside Liam Neeson, Adrien Brody and Mila Kunis.

“But,” said Atias, with a sly smile, “Penelope was pregnant.”

A range of moods

Atias is a gearbox of humor and intensity. The morning trip to the library turned to talk of the Islamic State, the Arab-Israeli conflict and other global turmoil. She picked up a copy of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s autobiography and shook her head. “She doesn’t open up,” she said. The mood lightened somewhat when an assistant from her manager Carolyn Govers’ office arrived in a T-shirt and a cap with a box of DVDs and a script. He vanished.

Atias picked up the script. Scoffed. She said she wanted to make a film that mattered. She pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes. With a beauty only a magician could disguise, she’s the kind of woman who could get you to rob a bank.

“Do you write screenplays?” she asked.

“No.”

“Mmm.”

She paused.

“You know,” she said, brushing the sleeve of a striped shirt, pushing back her dark hair, “I am learning to have mundane conversations, like how much I like my girlfriend’s backpack.”

Less than a week after “Third Person” opened, Atias was in make-believe Abbudin, playing Leila, the wife of Jamal Al-Fayeed, a pathological Middle East president and target of a coup led by his pediatrician brother. “Tyrant,” which began its second season in June, is a family Rorschach test that taps into the real-life intrigue and politics of the Arab Spring revolutions that brought down Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Libyan dictator Moammar Kadafi.

The ensemble cast, including Adam Rayner, was caught up in the region’s dangerous fault lines when filming of Season 1’s final episodes had to be moved from Israel to Turkey after the outbreak of the Gaza war. Atias said the excitement of returning home to work was overshadowed by her country’s frequent unrest; when she was a child her mother once put her and her brother on different school buses to better the odds that at least one would survive a terrorist bombing.

“Tyrant,” she said, was a “rare opportunity to bring to the screen real dialogue” about the Middle East. The cast and crew of Jews and Muslims were a microcosm of wider regional suspicions. “I wanted to understand how they feel living and working in Israel,” she said. “It was very hard to hear such resentment and hate.... They were left with this desperation” at reviling Israel but also condemning the Palestinian leadership of Hamas and Fatah.

Muslims and Jews have been “neighbors such a long time,” she said. “I’m not saying we’re successful in getting along. It makes me feel even more disappointed. It’s like how you don’t get along with your own family. You know them better than anyone else yet it’s so personal.”

“Tyrant’s” first season, however, preferred caricature to nuance, skimming but not unraveling the region’s fascinating narratives and neuroses. Reviewers have been more positive about the second season. Variety columnist Brian Lowry noted the new episodes reflect a “fairly impressive turnaround, significantly diminishing, if not wholly expunging, much of the stupidity, while echoing real-life events in provocative ways.”

Atias studied the biographies of Arab first ladies, including Queen Rania of Jordan, to shape Leila into a steely operator, a Lady Macbeth in heels who is keenly aware of her vulnerabilities. As she did with Monika in “Third Person,” Atias, with her cultural sensibilities and skill with accents, brings mystery and grit to characters that are at once erotic and inured to the ways of the world.

Haggis said he was impressed by Atias’ interaction with more accomplished stars. “I think any actor would be intimidated working with actors of the caliber of Adrien and Liam — and if she is honest, she will tell you she was terrified that she would fail,” said Haggis, who has remained close to Atias. “She took that fear and did something constructive with it.”

The director noted that Atias persuaded him to make a small adjustment in the script, changing the Gypsy’s lineage from Romanian to Albanian. “I laughed and asked her why, and she went through the history of some of the women she’d met in her research, and then finally just admitted she liked the accent better, as it was softer, and she thought it would make the character more accessible.”

Early days

Atias’ grandparents left Morocco in the 1950s and set out for the newly formed Israel. The family eventually settled in the northern city of Haifa, not far from the Lebanese border. The daughter of a legal secretary and an antiques dealer, Atias, who wanted to be a psychiatrist, grew up listening to biblical stories told by her grandfather, a rabbi, whom she visited on the Sabbath.

“Job is my favorite,” she said of the man who incurs great suffering at the devil’s hands and proves his devotion to God. “As a child I didn’t understand why God had to surrender to Satan’s provocation. If he’s a good man, why do we have to question him?”

She has asked similar questions in examining the motivations of herself and her characters. Atias had planned to model for two years in Italy and return to Israel — just as her friends were finishing military service — to enroll in college with them. But after she started acting, she said, she was “swallowed into a world that answered a lot of my curiosities.”

“Tyrant” co-creator Howard Gordon said Atias is one of the most prepared actors he has worked with. “She knew this part was hers. There was an inevitability about it,” he said. “She had a clear idea of who the character was, and she’s exceeded expectations.”

But Hollywood, at first, was aloof. “It was impossible to even get an audition,” said Atias, who lives in West Hollywood and has since appeared in TV shows, including “White Collar” and “CSI: Miami.” “All they wanted was American credits. It was very hard in the beginning to get into the room.” She polished her American accent, kept showing up for readings and researched script ideas.

“I even Googled the ‘best stories that have never been told,’” she said.

She sat the other day in a wooden chair by the window at the Beverly Hills library. Deep into a conversation about militants and the moral equations of taking hostages, she was asked to hush or leave for speaking above a whisper. She looked at the guard as if a scolded coed, packed her laptop and notebook, walked past the stacks to an outdoor café and ordered a tea.

The afternoon sky stayed gray, the talk heavy, but in the kind of way that was oddly relaxing. She mentioned a scene in “Third Person.” To add slight imperfection to her looks, Atias wore prosthetic teeth in her portrayal of Monika. During filming in a bar where Monika meets Brody’s character, Scott, a conniving American businessman, the teeth unexpectedly flew out of her mouth. The cast and crew, she said, shared glances of disgust.

“That was exactly how I wanted them to see Monika,” she said. “Disgust made her real.”

Special correspondent Batsheva Sobelman in Jerusalem contributed to this story.