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Shohreh Aghdashloo doesn't look like a fearless political firebrand. She arrived at a Studio City diner wearing an elegant suit, apologizing for being just three minutes late. But as Aghdashloo began talking about her latest film, "The Stoning of Soraya M." -- a compelling true story about an Iranian woman who was unjustly accused of infidelity by her husband and then stoned to death for the crime -- the outspoken Iranian expat emerged.

Aghdashloo, who left Iran during the nation's Islamic revolution in the late 1970s, hasn't flinched from roles that portray a less than flattering side of the Muslim world. After earning an Oscar nomination for her role as a pampered Iranian immigrant wife in the 2003 film "House of Sand and Fog," Aghdashloo spent a season on Fox's "24" depicting a terrorist and incensing Iranian Americans who believed it perpetuated stereotypes. Last year, she portrayed Saddam Hussein's wife Sajida in the BBC/HBO miniseries "House of Saddam."

On this evening, she passionately condemned the predominantly Muslim tradition of stoning, which she said millions of people around the world still believe is a just form of punishment, often with little in the way of a fair trial. To prove her point, she referenced the Koran, the Bible, quoted Mohandas K. Gandhi and Bertolt Brecht. She quoted her own mother too, a pious woman who stayed in Iran after her children left for the U.S., and all these years later still puzzles over her daughter's daring choices. And soon, Aghdashloo seemed to be addressing the fundamentalist Muslim leaders of Iran, who shortly after this conversation were accused of fixing an election that kept hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in power, leading to street protests and violent bloodshed.

"This is not right for a country that claims to have enriched uranium," she said of the practice of stoning, while leaning over the table and cutting the air with her hands. "This is really shameful. Having gone all the way through dealing with sophisticated technological gadgets, and a few blocks farther down you stone people? If you'd like to merge with the whole world, you have got to stop it. All we're asking pious Muslims is to get rid of their superstitions and traditions such as this one horrible, barbaric form of punishment."

This is the sort of public candor that prompted "Stoning" co-producer Stephen McEveety to call the actress "one of the bravest women I know."