"I was able to ask her as many questions as I possibly could,” said Grace Van Patten of preparing to portray Amanda Knox. "She was extremely open with me."

After signing on to star in Hulu's "The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox," the actor only had two months to prepare for the role: "It was nice to kind of have a fire under me."

Van Patten tells PEOPLE she remembers worrying, "What would [Knox] think of me, this random actress portraying her in a very traumatic time of her life?"