See Grace Van Patten in ‘The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox’ first look (exclusive)

People think they know Amanda Knox. They might remember her 2009 conviction in Italy of killing her British roommate and friend, Meredith Kercher. Or maybe they remember the media circus surrounding her and her boyfriend at the time, accused co-conspirator Raffale Sollecito, including one sensational take that the killing was some sort of sex-torture misadventure — and the “Foxy Knoxy” nickname that came with it. Or they know that her conviction was eventually overturned, and Rudy Guede was charged with the sexual assault and murder of 21-year-old Kercher. 

Or maybe they watched the 2016 Netflix documentary about the whole sordid affair, Amanda Knox, and think they have the full picture.

This summer, Hulu presents another side of the story with drama The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox, an 8-episode limited series from creator and executive producer K.J. Steinberg (This Is Us). Knox herself is an executive producer on this telling, inspired by her experiences with the Italian criminal justice system and infamy. 

But don’t call Knox’s prosecutors “villains.”

“I don’t see them as villainous at all,” Steinberg tells Entertainment Weekly. “I actually see them as good people who woke up every morning thinking they were doing the right thing and taking their jobs extraordinarily seriously. I think we all come to situations with our own biases that we come by honestly.”

She continues, “The show explores the anatomy of bias. Certainly, there was misogyny and some could say racism and nationalism, and lots of isms — the show is not short on those. But Amanda firmly believes, and I actually firmly believe, that those police and the prosecutor were not bad actors. They came with a set of beliefs, they formed opinions on the scene, and those became some actual biases that…folks became entrenched in, and that entrenchment is what is and what was dangerous.”

Knox’s alibi was the film Amélie. Her part-time job had given her the night off, and so she’d spent it with Sollecito, watching the 2001 French romantic comedy. After a series opener that sees a 35-year-old Knox, played by Grace Van Patten, furtively traveling through Italy to meet with her former prosecutor, the series makes use of Amélie‘s stylized whimsy to introduce a naive, younger Knox (also played by Van Patten) and her dreams of studying abroad. The effect is a study in contradictions, as the jubilant, doe-eyed Seattle native would come to find herself in a version of Presumed Innocent instead.

“I was struggling to reconcile myself with this 20-year-old exchange student who grew into this very polarizing figure,” Steinberg says. “I found that her connection to Amélie really was reflective of a worldview of the person she was before all of this happened. The innocence, the romantic idealism, the naiveté, the appetite for adventure — all of those things were very representative of who Amanda was and what was stolen from both Amanda and Meredith and their families, and the people surrounding them who were revictimized by the injustice that ensued. So it seemed only appropriate to help the audience get to know her as a person before the false imprisonment, before the false accusations, before the crime, because that’s not who she is. That is what her story became, but that’s not who she is as a human being.”

Van Patten, star of Hulu hit series Tell Me Lies, took over the role of Knox after another executive producer on the series, The Substance star Margaret Qualley had to drop out because of scheduling conflicts. Steinberg says Van Patten brings “so much honesty, so much courage” to the role in both timelines.

“I had trouble remembering that [Amanda] was a baby when this happened, because the press did such a number, and because we, as a consumer society, fed on it and bought it,” Steinberg says. “I had this image of her as this woman. She was called ‘Foxy Knoxy.’ She was this vixen. You don’t call a 20-year-old child a ‘vixen.’ It just doesn’t line up, and I think the false narratives around her, created this sense of womanhood around her, which was strange and unearned, and people quickly forgot that she was a child.”

Someone who knows a thing or two about controversy, Monica Lewinsky, is another of the series’ executive producers, alongside Steinberg, Warren Littlefield, Lisa Harrison, Ann Johnson, and Graham Littlefield, as well as Knox and her husband, Chris Robinson. 

Steinberg sees a unique connection between Knox and Lewinsky. 

“Monica Lewinsky and Amanda Knox were partnered on this before I ever was approached. And I have such deep respect for both of them, and obviously, they have some common trauma,” she says. “The commonality that they have that I see: They’re both extraordinary women, both brilliant, both resilient, and pretty miraculous, as far as I’m concerned. I don’t know that I could have survived what either of them went through. And they are both very joyful people, despite everything, and very, very committed to changing the corrupt way that we look at, I think, especially young women in the media.”

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And yet, Steinberg still isn’t interested in the idea of a villain. “If this were a show about good guys and bad guys, I wouldn’t be interested in doing it, and I don’t think people would be interested in watching it,” she says. “The show has a wider lens than that. It’s looking at: What was the ecosystem in which an injustice like this could happen? Who were the players? Where were they coming from? What were their beliefs? And their beliefs were so strong that even when new evidence came in, they couldn’t move from their initial conclusions.”

The series, which also stars Sharon Horgan, John Hoogenakker, Francesco Acquaroli, Giuseppe De Domenico, and Roberta Mattei, premieres Aug. 20, on Hulu with two episodes at launch, then one new episode weekly.