The actor and the role

Was watching this documentary on Egypt's revolution last night and thought I saw someone familiar.

Aida El Kashef who plays Aliya in Ship of Theseus (below) is apparently a revolutionary of some significance back home. 

There's of course a certain quirkiness that Aida brings to her role in SoT, a certain rebelliousness which is hard to miss. Very well crafted role or conversely excellent choice of actor. Going over interviews it seems like the script came before the actress in this case. How much of the script and role changed with her being part of the project is hard to deduce but I would think it would be significant. Aliya is not a helpless handicapped in the movie but a rather strong and unreasonable sort who is quite clear in expressing her disdain of her partner's (and I believe, the audience's) patron-ization. 

Which made me wonder how that strength of character (which is as much as I can make out from her outwardly characteristics) helps or impedes a real life revolutionary. A very hard analytic look on their (Aida, Khalid Abdalla (kite runner) & friends) revolution does seem to have achieved only precious little and is somewhat of a let-down compared to what transpired after having successfully deposed a despot who ruled for 30 years. Compared to all the ideals, the application really does suck balls. From accepting victory way too early to giving up before really having a constitution, errors of planning and strategy abound in the revolution.

And that's what makes me wonder, in a movie as in life, where does uncompromising get you? In other words, can you be the actor for every role or would you much rather make engineer every role for your act?