The show -- which premieres on the streaming platform on Wednesday, Aug. 20 -- tells the story of Knox being wrongfully accused of murdering her roommate while studying abroad in Italy in 2007. It then tracks her path to exoneration.
While attending the series premiere on Tuesday, Aug. 19 at the New York Historical Society in New York City, Knox speaks exclusively with PEOPLE about seeing Van Patten bring her story to life.
She tearfully describes the experience as being overwhelmingly liberating.
"I felt like I could finally grieve the young person that I was," Knox, who served as an executive producer alongside Monica Lewinsky, tells PEOPLE. "Someone recently said that what happened is someone stole my sparkle. They didn't just steal my freedom, they stole my sparkle. And seeing her bring it back again -- I'm just so grateful to her, that she's honored that for me."
Knox says she had "chills" seeing Van Patten's "ability to just take on the whimsy but the gravitas of this role."
"Not just me," she continues, "Everyone I know who has seen this has just been like, 'How did she do that? How?' She is incredible, and I'm so grateful to her because I feel like that is something that I've struggled with for so long, is how much people have rendered me two-dimensional. And she finally honors that young person that I was and the person I am today."
While sharing her story was cathartic, Knox felt a duty to accurately portray certain key moments from this part of her life. She explains that she felt the need to get her interrogation scene "right."
"That scene is so complex. The psychological journey that Grace has to go on to arrive where she arrives? I'm so proud of her. Especially when so many people are resistant to that idea of how police can lie and coerce. She just got it and brought it. Yeah," she says.
Also on the red carpet, Van Patten tells PEOPLE that it "means so much" to hear Knox's praise.
"My main goal was to make her feel seen, and the fact that she did, that is all I care about," she admits.
When asked about her approach to playing a woman who has had so much of her life play out in the public eye, Van Patten explains that she didn't want to become a caricature of Knox.
"I really didn't want to attempt to do some sort of impersonation of her," she explains, adding that "There were little things that I took, but I tried not to put pressure on myself to re-enact anything."
One thing that the Tell Me Lies star wanted to perfect was Knox's "cutest snort laugh."
"It was more about capturing her essence," she says of the unique role.
The first two episodes of The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox premiere on Hulu on Wednesday, Aug. 20. New episodes will follow weekly.