Lily Dionne had been in Hollywood a week when she answered an ad on Craigslist looking for actors for an action-adventure film called "Desert Warrior."

Now, Dionne says she feels betrayed by the California filmmaker who turned the low budget-movie with a threadbare plot into an anti-Islam film that provoked outrage -- with sometimes violent results -- in parts of the Muslim world.

When news broke that violent mobs attacked the U.S. consulate in the Libyan city of Benghazi, leaving Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans dead, she was overwhelmed.

"I was shaking when I found out. I had no idea," Dionne told CNN on Sunday. "This was a movie that I thought no one would ever see."

Dionne knew the filmmaker as Sam Bacile. But federal officials say his name is Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, a convicted felon with a history of using aliases to hide his actions.

They consider Nakoula to be the filmmaker behind "Innocence of Muslims," an amateurish film that portrays the Prophet Mohammed as a womanizer, buffoon, ruthless killer and child molester.

Islam categorically forbids any depictions of Mohammed, and blasphemy is an incendiary taboo in the Muslim world.

The movie, backed by hardcore anti-Islam groups in the United States, is a low-budget project that was ignored in the United States when trailers were posted on YouTube in July.

But after Egyptian television aired certain segments, violent protests erupted in Egypt, Yemen, Tunisia, Morocco, Sudan, Iran, Iraq, Israel and the Palestinian territories.

Crew was "grossly misled"

Dionne was one of about 79 cast and crew who say they were "grossly misled" when they answered casting calls on Craigslist, Backstage magazine and other publications in July 2011 for a film that was described as "an historical Arabian Desert adventure."

But from the beginning, Dionne said the cast and crew had questions, including why the central character in a period piece had a Western name.

"We did wonder what it was about. They kept saying George. And we were like, 'This is the Middle East 2000 years ago. Who's George?'" she said.

She says never heard any talk of politics or religion from the man she knew as Bacile.

After the location shoot wrapped, Dionne said she and others were brought in to dub lines.

"They brought the actors in in post(production) and had them say specific words. Like 'Mohammed,' for example. It was isolated. It wasn't in context," she said. "They'd say 'Say Mohammed,' and they'd (the actors would) say 'Say Mohammed' why?"

When the film was complete, it was no longer a desert adventure about a man named George but rather an anti-Islamic movie about Prophet Mohammed.

"He knew what he was doing. He was playing us all along," Dionne said.

Another actress, Cindy Garcia, said last week she spoke with the producer after the unrest began.

"He said he wrote the script because he wants the Muslims to quit killing," Garcia said. "I had no idea he was doing all this."

The 79 cast and crew members released statement saying they were" extremely upset and feel taken advantage of by the producer."

They said they were "shocked by the drastic rewrites of the script and lies that were told to all involved. We are deeply saddened by the tragedies that have occurred."

When news of his movie first broke, the filmmaker -- identifiying himself as Bacile -- told the Wall Street Journal that he was a 52-year-old Israeli-American real estate developer from California. He said Jewish donors contributed $5 million to finance his film.

But Israel's foreign ministry said there was no record of a Sam Bacile with Israeli citizenship.

"This guy is totally anonymous. At this point, no one can confirm he holds Israeli citizenship. And even if he did, we are not involved," ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said.