“Sometimes you start believing the way society treats you. Gypsies are treated like dirt, so you believe you’re dirt,” Israeli-born actress Moran Atias declares boldly. To prepare for her role as Monika in this summer’s romantic drama Third Person (written and directed by Paul Haggis, and co-starring Liam Neeson and Olivia Wilde), Atias begged on the streets of Rome and didn’t change or wash her clothes for weeks, experiencing firsthand rejection and disgust as a result.

It was while filming a small role in The Next Three Days with Haggis that Atias knew she wanted to be cast in another of the director’s projects. “I hung out on the set of The Next Three Days and just followed Paul around,” she says. “I thought, I have to work with this filmmaker again.”

“Moran started pitching ideas at me,” he recalls, adding, “At the end of filming we sat down and talked very specifically and honestly about relationships, and I began to think, What if two totally wrong people could actually be right for each other?”

Haggis admits he took a chance casting her. “I like finding roles where actors can surprise you,” he says. “Moran’s an extremely beautiful woman; she oozes sexuality. But she was untested, and this was a huge role. I thought, Maybe she can pull it off—an Albanian Gypsy who survives by her wits, speaks three languages, uses men.”

Three different cities. Three love stories that intertwine in a way you don’t expect. Third Person is, Atias says, “profoundly personal and revealing about who we are in regard to love.” Haggis says choosing Atias to play Monika certainly paid off: “I’m very happy that this is going to be Moran’s breakout performance. She’s a force of nature.”