Amanda Knox and Monica Lewinsky team up for new series, say their stories are similar
The two executive producers of the series sat down with "Good Morning America" Monday and said working on the new show together felt like a natural fit.
"I had a first-look television deal at the time, and I thought, aha! Another young woman who had suffered in the media, had been feasted on on the world stage, and luckily, like a savvy executive, she got all the yeses, and we were off to the races," Lewinsky said.
Lewinsky, now 52, was catapulted to international infamy in the mid-1990s, after news of her affair with then-President Bill Clinton, while she was a young White House intern, made global headlines.
Knox, now 38, captured headlines in 2007, when her roommate, British exchange student Meredith Kercher, was murdered while the two young women were studying abroad in Italy. Knox was convicted of the murder by an Italian court in 2009, along with Raffaele Sollecito, another student she was dating at the time, but both convictions were overturned on appeal in 2011.
In 2008, Rudy Guede was convicted of Kercher's murder. He was released in December 2020 after serving 16 years in prison.
Italy's highest court subsequently ordered a new trial in 2013, and Knox and Sollecito were reconvicted of murder in 2014, before the high court overturned the murder convictions again in 2015. Knox served four years in prison in Italy before she was released in 2011 and acquitted in 2015.
What Amanda Knox says she tells her kids about her experience in Italy
Knox said that although her experience differed from Lewinsky's, they still shared multiple similarities.
"We were both interrogated. We've both been, you know, viciously turned into characters of ourselves in the media," Knox said. "And I think that the thing that we actually were both most interested in was making sure that this show had a wider lens."
She added, "It's not just a courtroom drama, it's not your typical true crime biopic. It's a more personal journey and one that really begins with the story of what happens before -- and then, of course, what happens after the worst experience of your life."
In the series, Knox is portrayed by actress Grace Van Patten, known for her roles in Hulu's "Nine Perfect Strangers" and "Tell Me Lies." Both Knox and Lewinsky serve as executive producers on the series.
Amanda Knox opens up about life today, new memoir
Knox said making this new series forced her to relive a chapter of her life that she said included some of the "worst moments." Despite this, she said the experience was still cathartic.
"It felt like I was allowed to grieve for the first time, because it was outside of myself, and I got to watch myself and these people portray this journey, and it was as if I was there … and I was grieving in a big way for the first time in ways that I wasn't able to," Knox said.
Both Knox and Lewinsky said while making "The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox," they made sure to honor Kercher, who was never able to return from Italy to her home in south London.
"Everyone on this project understood that this is a story about two young women who went to go study abroad in Perugia, Italy, and only one of them survived," Knox said. "And I think that the way that I was turned into a caricature, in a big way, she was as well … and we really ground in this series that this is a real person, and it was very important for us to do that."
"I didn't know her very long but, like, she was there, and she plays a huge role in my life even today. And so, I hope the audience feels that," Knox added.
"The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox," an eight-part limited series, premieres on Hulu and Hulu on Disney+ with the first two episodes on Wednesday. New subsequent episodes will be available to stream every Wednesday, with the finale out Oct. 1.
The Walt Disney Co. is the parent company of ABC News and Hulu.
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