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?"

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."

Note: This story contains spoilers from "The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox" Episode 2. "The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox" plunges viewers into the "psychological nightmare" that befell Knox when she was accused of killing her roommate Meredith Kercher while studying abroad in Italy in 2007 and was subsequently wrongfully imprisoned for years.