Grace Van Patten Says 'New Information' Will Be Exposed About Amanda Knox's Story in Hulu's Limited Series (Exclusive) By Julia Moore

Grace Van Patten is telling Amanda Knox’s story like it’s never been told before.

In The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox, the 28-year-old actress embodies a 20-year-old Knox as she’s wrongfully convicted for the murder of her roommate, Meredith Kercher, while studying abroad in Italy. The limited series follows Knox’s “16-year odyssey to set herself free,” and Van Patten says it’s an “opportunity to reclaim her story.”

“What I thought was so beautiful is, everyone approached it so empathetically. No one’s the villain in the story,” she tells PEOPLE in this week’s issue.

Van Patten has been fascinated by Knox’s story since watching her 2016 documentary, but after diving into her world to play her, she says there’s so much she never knew.

“It was a crazy, full-circle moment for me because I do remember when this happened. And I remember watching the documentary, and it was around the same time I started acting, and I was so fascinated by the story and Amanda as a human being,” the Tell Me Lies star says. “I remember having this dream of playing her one day.”

Landing the part left her the most excited she’d ever been for a project, but also with “the most nerves I’ve ever had.”

“I had never played a real existing human in the world, so that was very new for me. And the main thing for me was what involvement Amanda was going to have in it.”

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Knox, now 38 and a mother of two, is an executive producer on the series. Van Patten cannot emphasize enough how “trusting” she was of her throughout the process.

“How willing she was to talk to me and trust me, it felt very beautiful and emotional because of how people have created this narrative of her whole life,” she says.

The limited series brings new things to light about Knox’s story that haven’t been told before.

“I mean, I thought I knew a good amount, and it wasn’t even close to the twists and turns that happened throughout those years,” she teases. “It’s new information that the public does not know — especially in that last episode.”

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Van Patten’s main goal for The Twisted Tale is that people “go in with an open mind and just base whatever opinion they’re going to find on facts, and not what they thought they knew, or what they read at the time.”

“Most people did just read the headlines of her being this sex-crazed young girl, murderous, villainous, which couldn’t be further from who she is,” she adds.

She knows that a lot of viewers will be going in with “preconceived opinions” on Knox, but encourages people to be “open to having those perspectives change.”

“The whole downfall of this whole story is how people were just totally brainwashed by the press and media,” she continues, referring to the international frenzy that unfolded when Knox was charged and imprisoned in 2007.

“It just felt very, very important to me, which I haven’t experienced doing a job before — the importance of telling something that really should be told.”

In 2015, Knox was exonerated by Italy’s highest court, four years after she won an appeal and left an Italian prison in 2011. Last year, her previous conviction for slander was upheld, and despite an attempt to appeal that decision, she was rejected. She said on her podcast, Labyrinths, following the rejection, “I’m feeling just kind of f——- numb.”

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The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox premieres Aug. 20 on Hulu with the first two episodes, followed by weekly releases through Oct. 1.