Grace Van Patten Reveals The Most “Intense” Scene In ‘The Twisted Tale Of Amanda Knox’ And Why ‘Tell Me Lies’ Season 3 Will Be “Emotional Chaos”

Ever since Grace Van Patten saw a documentary about Amanda Knox, she’s been fascinated by the woman at the center of one of the most notorious crimes in living memory. So, when the titular role came up in Hulu limited series The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox, Van Patten didn’t hesitate. Having met Knox, whom, Van Patten calls “a beautiful person,” Van Patten was determined to do her story justice, even learning Italian for the part.

Van Patten first appeared on television aged just eight, in an episode of The Sopranos, and more recently in Nine Perfect Strangers and as the lead in Tell Me Lies — Hulu’s college-set drama series centered around Lucy Albright, a young woman whose relationship with fellow student Stephen DeMarco (Jackson White) devolves into a toxic nightmare. Here, speaking to Deadline via Zoom from her LA backyard “because my entire family is inside the house,” Van Patten discusses her feelings on the legacy of The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox and what’s coming up in Season 3 of Tell Me Lies.

DEADLINE: You were probably a little kid when the Amanda Knox trial hit the headlines? I remember it so vividly and I always thought she was innocent. I really felt the misogyny and hatred which seemed to come so much from her being beautiful and people deciding she must be some sort of evil temptress.

VAN PATTEN: It’s so nice to hear that you thought that from the beginning. And yeah, it’s so true. It’s why this story is so fascinating because there isn’t really a concrete reason why they put a target on her back so early on. And yes, she’s beautiful, and yes, she had a personality that these older misogynistic Italian men didn’t understand. It was a clash of two worlds, and they didn’t have answers and they wanted to pretend that they did. So, she had a target on her back from day one and she didn’t even know it, which is the scary part. She couldn’t even defend herself. She didn’t know what was going on. And it was just this vicious cycle that just kept getting worse and worse.

DEADLINE: And apart from being a really attractive young woman, she had dared to have sex with her boyfriend and stay at his house. Suddenly, she’s the devil. It’s a story of our times really.

VAN PATTEN: Absolutely. She was a young girl living her life in the way that all of us do. And because she was under a microscope, she was being completely scrutinized for doing all of these very normal things. And then, in the context of being accused for murder, everything was just highlighted. People just wanted to dissect everything, and every look, and every response. And there’s no winning. I can’t imagine being in that situation. And being under that for years, and years, and years, I can’t even imagine.

DEADLINE: I recently listened to the audio of her memoir, which was so interesting.

VAN PATTEN: She’s so smart. A beautiful person, the way she’s come out of it. It’s still going on. It’s still a relevant topic, which is crazy, but just she’s so articulate in the way she explains it and has not let it ruin her and her ability to live her life the way she wants to and to have a family. I found her mindset and her attitude so inspiring.

DEADLINE: Both Amanda and Monica Lewinsky are executive producers. Did you meet Amanda before you were cast, or after?  

VAN PATTEN: I met Amanda after I decided to do it, because there was no hesitation for me. There really wasn’t. The only conversation I had before everything was locked in was with K.J. [Steinberg], the showrunner, and Warren Littlefield, executive producer. And the way they explained how they were going to approach telling this story was so beautiful, and layered, and sensitive, and creative, and they had such a perspective that I was just immediately… I was already intrigued by the story, and then, so intrigued in the way they were going to approach it that it was a no-brainer for me. And then, I got to meet Amanda, and it just kept getting more and more exciting, and I felt more and more of a motivation to help tell this story.

The most important thing was that Amanda felt seen by it, and I hope she did. I think she did.

Grace Van Patten

DEADLINE: Did you feel like you wanted to tell Amanda, “I know you didn’t do it.” Did you want to say that to her right away?

VAN PATTEN: Yeah, absolutely. I was so nervous before I met her for the first time. It was over Zoom right in this chair. It was such a new feeling for me. I feel nervous about everything I do. But the nerves of just meeting somebody that you’re about to embody and with such a sensitive topic and controversy, I didn’t know what I was going to be able to ask her. I didn’t know how open she was going to be. I didn’t know if she was supportive of me playing her. I didn’t know her role in it. I didn’t know anything really.And then, the moment she popped up on my screen, she was just so pure and vulnerable, and it put me at ease so much, and I could just tell immediately that she was so down to go there with me, and we were on the same page. I got really emotional. She started speaking about Raffaele, and she got really emotional, and watching her get emotional made me so emotional. And it was just like I kept getting fed more and more reasons to do this and to tell this story correctly because it hasn’t been told correctly yet.

DEADLINE: You shot in Rome, right?

VAN PATTEN: We shot in Rome and Budapest, yes. Amanda didn’t come to any of the Italy portion, but she did come to Budapest for the end for the last two weeks of shooting. And she also came for the big interrogation scene at the end of Episode 2, because everyone felt like it was a very important scene to get emotionally correct, and she had to be there for that, which was really intense.

She was so supportive. And I think what made this work was because we really trusted each other. And I really trusted her to tell me when things may not have happened that way or if things needed to be adjusted. And I think she trusted me in knowing that I really wanted to portray her as authentically as possible.

DEADLINE: And you learned Italian?

VAN PATTEN: I never got to a level of feeling confident speaking fluently. I definitely got to a level of understanding a lot. And a lot of the crew were Italian and most of the actors were, so I got to a point of feeling familiar with the language and understanding a lot. I was phonetically learning it. Pronunciation matters, and I need to get this right, and I want Italian people to feel what I’m saying and understand it, but more important was the emotion behind it, and making it feel like I actually understood what I was saying. So, I really just read the scripts a million times and especially the Italian bits, so I really, really knew and could feel what I was saying.

DEADLINE: What was it like when the show was finished? Did you have a chance to talk to Amanda about how she felt about it?

VAN PATTEN: Yeah. I don’t want to speak for her, but everyone that was a part of it seems really happy and proud of the product. And for me, it was such a unique experience because every job I’ve done, there’s this anticipation for when it comes out. Is it going to be good? Are people going to like it? All those questions that I ask myself. And with this, I was so fulfilled with the process of making it, and I knew that we all did something good and important, that that was a meaningful part to me. And whether people liked it or didn’t like it was kind of irrelevant to me. The most important thing was that Amanda felt seen by it, and I hope she did. I think she did. But other than that, I just felt so thankful to be a part of something that was helping somebody reclaim their narrative and their story.

DEADLINE: As you know, I’m obsessed with Tell Me Lies. You’ve finished shooting Season 3.

VAN PATTEN:

Yes, it’s coming out very soon.

DEADLINE: All I know is that the showrunner Meaghan Oppenheimer has said it’s probably going to be more of the 2015 timeline than 2008…

VAN PATTEN: It’s probably more 2015 than other seasons, but it still really lives in the college years as well.

When girls have told me that [Tell Me Lies] helped them see how wrong they were being treated, and helped them realize that they deserve so much more, it’s the best thing I could ever hear.

Grace Van Patten

DEADLINE: Something I thought about for Season 2 is that we definitely saw Lucy be a bit psychotic. She did some dark things. And I wondered, if she was always a bit that way, because when we first meet her, she says she is so numb and feels nothing for the guy she just dumped. So are we going to up the ante on Lucy’s behavior this season?

VAN PATTEN:

Oh, you have no idea.

DEADLINE: She’s going to push Stephen off a cliff, isn’t she?

VAN PATTEN: It is emotional chaos. Turmoil. Meaghan somehow just surpasses expectations every season. And I don’t know how she finds a way to make it crazier every season, but she does. And it’s dark, that’s all I’ll say.

DEADLINE: And Iris Apatow is joining the cast, I’m excited to see her.

VAN PATTEN: She’s amazing. She’s so great in it and such a beautiful person, and I’m so excited for her as a human and for her career. I think she’s so special.

DEADLINE: Do you feel like making the show and playing Lucy has helped arm you for dealing with those kinds of characters like Stephen? Because we come across these sociopathic types, even outside of romance. They’re everywhere. So, do you feel like you have a radar for this stuff, and that you would know how to deal with a Stephen in real life? And I mean no shade on Jackson! [Van Patten is dating Jackson White in real life].

VAN PATTEN: [Laughs] I think what’s so relatable about this show is I think everyone thinks that they couldn’t get involved in a situation like that. I think we’re all capable of seeing red flags in other people’s situations. And when you’re in a situation like Lucy and Stephen, and it’s this slow burn, and you don’t even know you’re in it until it’s so bad, and then, you’re already in the cycle. And I think why it’s so cool is that it tells this story about the girl not being the victim of it and not being a weak person when you first see her. Lucy, when you first meet her, isn’t a timid, malleable young girl. She doesn’t know who she is, and she’s had a lot of trauma in her life and a lot of wounds. But this can happen to anyone, and people should not have shame about being in something like that, because I really do think it could happen to the best of us. And sometimes it’s out of our control, and sometimes it takes zooming out if it happened five years ago, and you see it now.

I would say the thing that I really learned from it, and especially how Meaghan’s written Lucy’s evolution throughout the seasons is how much a toxic relationship can project onto other relationships without people knowing. And how people really take the trauma from a friendship, from a relationship, from whatever it is, and put it onto other relationships and how it can start to infiltrate your life and every relationship you have. And Meaghan did that, she wrote that so specifically. In Season 2, when Lucy starts seeing Leo, it’s like she’s not being present with anyone, because she’s so stuck in the psyche that she’s used to with dealing with Stephen, or protecting herself, or trying to hurt him and a lack of trust. And it takes so long, it takes a lot of work, to shed those ways that you’re used to in a relationship like that and start fresh with someone new and to really learn to separate people and relationships. I’m so guilty of it. It’s like whenever you begin a new relationship, you still have your old patterns and old ways from the last one, and it takes a while to start developing the new dynamic and not take parts of the old one. And I really noticed that in the show, and I think it’s told really, really authentically.

DEADLINE: In the same way that the Amanda Knox show has, I think, really helped change some minds, I think there’s a lot of people that will watch Tell Me Lies and go, “Wait, I need to get out of this toxic relationship.”

VAN PATTEN: It’s the best compliment I could ever get. It makes me so, so grateful to be a part of something like that, that I could open a young girl’s eyes and help her get out of a horrible situation. So, when girls have told me that, that it helped them see how wrong they were being treated, and helped them realize that they deserve so much more, it’s the best thing I could ever hear.

The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox is currently streaming on Hulu. Tell Me Lies Season 3 will premiere on Hulu on January 13, 2026.