Amanda Knox, once wrongfully convicted in the 2007 murder of her roommate Meredith Kercher in Italy, is revisiting her story. 

The scripted Hulu limited series The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox, created by This Is Us showrunner K.J. Steinberg, dramatizes Knox’s time as a UW student studying abroad in Italy. Knox is portrayed by Grace Van Patten. The show depicts the various stakeholders of the high-profile trial, the intense media and public scrutiny, Knox’s imprisonment, and her eventual exoneration. Hulu premiered the first two episodes on Aug. 20, with new episodes following weekly until the Oct. 1 finale. 

Knox, who serves as an executive producer alongside Monica Lewinsky, recently spoke with Seattle magazine about shaping the series and how Seattle remains a grounding home for her.

I want to just start by asking, what drew you to revisit your story in this particular format—a scripted series—after books, documentaries, podcasts, and all the other retellings?

Well, it’s true that you can write about an experience or hear it directly from someone, and that can be very compelling. But there’s another level of storytelling—where you live it alongside someone and feel like a fly on the wall in the room. It becomes deeply personal. 

What’s really special about what K.J. Steinberg, our creator and showrunner, has done with this series is she makes you feel as close to being in the shoes of everyone at the center of the story as humanly possible. That’s something I’m really proud of, because past tellings of this story often failed to humanize the people involved. Instead, they pitched us as characters in some black-and-white morality tale. 

This version is complex and visceral. Even close friends and family have told me they’re experiencing my story in a whole new way, as if they’re in the room with me when these terrible things happened and I was so alone. That’s incredibly gratifying.

When you told friends and family that you were going to revisit this story in this way, what was their reaction?

It’s interesting, because my family isn’t one homogeneous unit. Everyone has processed what happened differently over time. That was something I wanted to portray in the series, and it was also really important to Monica Lewinsky. She deeply understands that when one person is put under a harsh spotlight, it doesn’t just affect them. It ripples out to everyone they belong to.

So from the beginning, Monica and I wanted the series to honor the fact that it wasn’t just me going through this ordeal. It was my entire family. It was Raffaele and his family. It was Meredith’s family. Even people like Giuliano Mignini’s family, all of them were watching someone they loved in crisis.

Past tellings of this story often failed to humanize the people involved. Instead, they pitched us as characters in some black-and-white morality tale.

My family has always been supportive of me doing what I need to feel some agency over my story. They understand that I didn’t just lose a friend and get thrown in prison for something I didn’t do. I had my identity and my story stolen. So they’ve supported me in finding ways to confront that on my own terms.

That said, they haven’t always agreed with my choices. One of the big dramas in the series is my mom not wanting me to return to Italy to speak with my prosecutor. She didn’t agree, she didn’t understand, but she still wanted to be there for me. That, to me, is a beautiful example of how love manifests and shows up in complicated, tension-filled ways.

Early on in the first episode, you’re seen wearing a red UW sweatshirt, rather than purple. As a UW alum, I have to ask what’s the story behind that? Or was that color editing a nod to Amélie?

I love that you noticed that! I did too. In the Amélie-inspired sequences, color is used to signal a different kind of headspace, lots of yellows, golds, and reds in that more heightened, surreal space, and then cooler tones when we return to the harsh reality.

How did you go about balancing the dramatic, tension-filled moments in the show with those bursts of levity and color?

I have to give credit to K.J. Steinberg for having this brilliant vision of wanting to break the mold of a traditional true-crime biopic. People have been asking me to tell this story for years, and I never wanted to because it never felt like my story. It was a bad thing that happened to my roommate, it was a bad thing that happened to me, but ultimately I had no say over it. I was just a helpless victim of the circumstance—and that’s not a story. That’s not my story.

When I made the choice to go back to Italy to confront my prosecutor, suddenly it did become my story. It wasn’t just about tragedy anymore; it became the story of going on a journey to confront something terrifying, to come out on the other side, and to appreciate that choice.

I think what K.J. was attempting to show with the Amélie homage is that there was a life before and a life after this tragic event that consumed so many people’s lives. She wanted to convey that this isn’t just a person in the headlines. She wanted to honor my youthful magical thinking and my naiveté. And the fact that I was actually watching Amélie the night my roommate was murdered just clicked for her. She came to me and said, “Hey, what do you think about doing an homage to Amélie on the show?” And I said, “Yes, yes, a thousand times yes.”

Was there any particular scene you pushed to be as much of a one-to-one dialogue or recreation as possible?

One-to-one dialogue is hard because so much of this took place over such a long period of time. That said, we did extensive research and tried to be as faithful as humanly possible to whatever evidence we had of the exact words spoken and the way they were said. For example, there are courtroom scenes where the dialogue is literally quoted from the transcripts.

The interrogation scene, though, was especially important to me to get right. People often don’t understand what it’s like to be in that situation, in part because it’s rarely shown accurately in media. On TV, interrogations are often this cartoonish thing, but in reality, you might just be sitting in someone’s office, not even realizing you’re being interrogated because they tell you it’s just an “interview.” It’s far more complicated and psychological than people realize.

Being on set, I wanted to help everyone understand that journey, the feeling of being emotionally and psychologically broken down. That was the challenge. K.J. felt a huge responsibility to get it right. She talked to experts on interrogation, she talked extensively with me, and we really worked to capture the truth of that experience.

In real life, it was 53 hours of interrogation over five days. Obviously, we couldn’t depict all of that, but what we did show—the condensed version of that final night—conveys the emotional truth of what I went through. And that mattered deeply, because it’s still one of the most misunderstood parts of my story, and one I’m often judged and blamed for.

Was there a scene that surprised you? And was this project cathartic for you?

Seeing Grace really become me so well was incredible. She has such instinctive empathy for all the points in my life, not just me at 20, but me at 35 as well. I found it deeply reassuring how easily she could inhabit my experience. She captured the tension between my optimism and my despair.

Another scene I’m particularly proud of—and which I don’t think has received as much attention—is after I come home from a Halloween party, and my family is freaking out over a death threat. They confront me in the kitchen, and there’s this intense push-and-pull: I’m trying to reclaim normalcy, and my family is like, “I’m sorry, you can’t,” all while processing what we’ve been through.

When I made the choice to go back to Italy to confront my prosecutor, suddenly it did become my story.

In reality, that didn’t all happen in one moment. It was a series of events that we combined into a single scene to capture the tension between people responding to trauma in different ways. It honors both the love and the stress in the room, and I think it’s a really powerful moment. It also helps break the mold of what we expect from these kinds of shows.

I do want to ask, from your perspective as someone deeply involved in advocacy for wrongfully convicted people, how do you see the media landscape evolving in the age of TikTok, Reddit detectives, and armchair sleuths? Do you feel things have become more empathetic and nuanced, or just louder?

It’s complicated. The craziness around the Karen Reed case is a good example of how these new platforms for sharing information and advocacy can be double-edged swords. There’s a fine line between advocacy and harassment. People now feel more personally invested in stories and have ways to express that interest. But at the same time, we’re no less prone to projecting our own fears and fantasies onto reality, and to turning people into two-dimensional, cartoonish versions of themselves.

The landscape has changed in that investigating a case is no longer just someone else’s job—it’s become a hobby for some people. Look at the documentary Don’t F*** With Cats: online sleuths solved that case, which might otherwise have gone unsolved. There’s no inherent good or bad in this shift; the power has simply moved from traditional gatekeepers to a more democratized space.

What’s a bit dangerous is that there are no rules for due process in the court of public opinion. It’s like the Wild West. Consumers need to be careful, just as they always should have been, but now the stakes feel different—because online, you can find whatever you want to believe, and that’s scary.

How has Seattle, in particular, been a grounding and supportive place for you, especially since returning home? We got a glimpse of it in the show, but what is it about Seattle, or Vashon specifically, that brings you peace?

Coming back to the Pacific Northwest after spending four years in an Italian prison—the very smell of home was overwhelming and beautiful. Coming home and seeing Easy Street Records’ board say “Welcome home, Amanda” was shocking. I was just some kid from West Seattle, and now people were showing up at the airport with signs saying welcome after all those years. I knew the case was big in the media, but it really hit me in a personal way.

By and large, the community has supported me and my family. That’s not to say everyone did—The Stranger had some really terrible reporting on the case back then. Dan Savage has since apologized to me, even though he wasn’t the one writing the articles at the time, he was an editor. He’s a wonderful person, and I’m thrilled to have connected with him. He took ownership and responsibility and made the effort to apologize in a way no other media outlet has.

Another thing I’ve heard is that Seattle-based photographers will refuse assignments that involve stalking me for paparazzi photos. So if I’m ever confronted with paparazzi here in Seattle or on Vashon, I know they’re outsiders because the local community agreed not to harass me. That’s incredible. It feels amazing to know my community, even people who didn’t know me personally, felt a responsibility to give me a safe, supportive home to come back to. That means a lot.

What are some of your favorite things to do in Seattle? And also, I’m a foodie, so I always ask everybody: favorite restaurants? Where do you like to eat? Do you still enjoy Italian food?

Well, I will reassure you, I didn’t really get to eat Italian food in Italian prisons. So if you’re looking for incredible Italian food in Seattle, have you ever been to La Spiga on Capitol Hill? It’s the best Italian food in Seattle. I’m also partial to sushi, so Mashiko in West Seattle is a big favorite. And here on Vashon, I think we have the best Thai food in all of Seattle, May Kitchen. If you haven’t been, it’s so good. One last sushi recommendation is Tori Sake and Grill in Burien.