Amanda Knox had nothing but praise for Grace Van Patten‘s performance as her in Hulu’s upcoming scripted TV series about Meredith Kercher‘s murder.
“I’ll say that Grace is f—ing amazing. That’s what I will say,” Knox, 37, exclusively told Us Weekly while promoting her new memoir, Free: My Search for Meaning. “I’m in a very, very privileged position as someone who is a subject of a story. Typically someone in my position — the subject — doesn’t get to be an executive producer of their own show.”
Knox expressed “gratitude” for the chance to tell her story. “It really comes down to this idea of do I have a voice and does my voice matter in how a story is told? That is what Hulu has recognized, and they’re taking a chance on that to say, ‘Yes, actually the subject does have a perspective that is valuable and that matters,’” she noted. “And we don’t have to pretend that this world is full of objective screenwriters who are not bringing their own stuff to the project. I think that that’s a really interesting experiment that is being made right now.”
She continued: “And of course, I’m really honored to work alongside Monica [Lewinsky], who is my mentor. She’s executive producing as well. I can’t speak a lot about it yet because we’re still in production. But I’ll just say that it is another manifestation of me having the opportunity to be recognized as someone who has a valuable perspective.”
Not much is known about Hulu’s untitled Amanda Knox project except that it is an eight-episode limited series “based on the true story of how Knox was wrongfully convicted for the murder of her roommate Meredith Kercher, and her 16-year odyssey to set herself truly free.”
Margaret Qualley was originally set to play Knox in Hulu’s scripted series, but she exited the project and Patten, 28, replaced her. Grace’s sister, Anna Van Patten, joined her on set in the role of Knox’s sister.
Knox made headlines in 2007 when was accused of murdering her roommate Kercher while they were studying abroad in Perugia, Italy. Knox was sentenced to 26 years in prison after she and then-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito were both convicted of the crime despite a lack of evidence.
An appellate court later found the former couple not guilty in 2011, but they were again found guilty three years later during a retrial. The Italian supreme court cleared Knox of Kercher’s murder in 2015 and she was exonerated.
Ivorian migrant Rudy Guede was sentenced in 2008 to 30 years in prison for Kercher’s murder after his DNA was identified at the crime scene. His sentence was later reduced, and he was released from prison in November 2021.
After becoming a public figure not by choice, Knox is taking back her voice.
“Writing has always been therapeutic for me. So I’ve been writing this book for many, many years. Some of the things that I incorporated into it were from pieces that I wrote ages ago — and all of them were about processing various aspects of this experience that I went through and trying to understand what they meant — if they meant anything,” Knox shared with Us. “All of these things and how they connected is the really beautiful takeaway for me writing this. It was me realizing the relationships that I have with people after feeling so ostracized and singled out.”
Knox used her experience to become an advocate for criminal justice reform and to fight for the rights of the wrongfully convicted.
“This is not a response. This is a proactive approach to me thinking about and grappling with the ripple effects of this trauma that exploded my life,” she explained. “[It is about] how I grappled with owning what’s mine, recognizing the mistakes that I made along the way and really trying to address what I think is a really interesting dilemma in the true crime world. It is this idea that human beings that you hear about in a true crime context only exist within that true crime context.”
Knox pointed out how usually people in high-profile true crime cases are forgotten about, adding, “You hear about the crime, you hear about their arrest, you hear about the trials, you hear about how long they spent in prison, and then when they get out of prison, they’re out. They have their first hamburger after they get out of prison, and then it is the end of the story. You don’t often hear this incredible journey that they go on afterwards to be like, ‘Oh, my God, now that I’ve proven my innocence, now what is my life?’”
Free: My Search for Meaning is out now.
