When she was interrogated after one arrest, she said, an officer demanded: “What do you want? Do you want freedom?” To which she said she replied, “My wish is that my son will not be led by the son of Bashar al-Assad!”

Ms. Skaf was born on April 13, 1969, in Damascus to a Muslim father and Christian mother. Survivors include her mother and her son, who was a teenager when she fled and later joined her.

She studied French literature at Al-Sham Private University in Damascus. Encouraged by an uncle, Saadallah Wannous, a well-known playwright, she began acting while still a student.

In 1992, she starred in a Syrian television version of Agatha Christie’s novel “Sleeping Murder.” She was cast in her first film, “Echoes of Slides,” in 1993; appeared in the TV series “The Silk Bazaar” (1996) and “The Last Days of Al Yamama” (2005); and in 2008 returned to film in “Damascus: The Smile of Sadness” (2008). One of her last appearances was in “Orchidia,” a 2017 Syrian soap opera shot in Tunisia and Romania.

Before Ms. Skaf left Syria, she also ran a theater group that gave performances and acting classes.

She staged her first protest against the Assad regime in 2011 and was detained. A few years later she was told to fear for her life.

“They dared not do anything to me,” she said in a 2016 interview in Paris with the website toutelaculture.com, “because they pretend to fight the terrorists, and I am not one of them.”

Supporters drove her to Beirut, where she was reunited with her son. When she reached Paris, she continued her political advocacy.