Last month, Marie Claire reported that actress Margaret Qualley had signed on to play Amanda Knox in a forthcoming Hulu miniseries produced by Monica Lewinsky and Knox herself—but, according to Entertainment Weekly, Qualley has dropped out of the project.
Qualley—who has starred in such projects as Maid, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, and Drive-Away Dolls—cited scheduling conflicts as the reason she will no longer portray Knox, an exonerated murder suspect who spent almost four years in an Italian prison. Knox was initially convicted of the 2007 sexual assault and murder of her roommate, Meredith Kercher, when both Knox and Kercher were studying abroad in Perugia, Italy; after a tumultuous legal battle, the verdict was overturned, and Knox was ultimately acquitted in 2015.
Indeed, 2024 will be a busy year for Qualley, who kicked off the year with the aforementioned Drive-Away Dolls. She’s next due to appear in Kinds of Kindness with Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons, and Willem Dafoe (set for a June release), as well as the horror film The Substance, alongside Demi Moore and Dennis Quaid. Entertainment Weekly reports that both films will premiere at the Cannes Film Festival next month.
In addition to those projects, she’s set to star in Honey Don’t in the near future, and recently co-directed and starred in the music video for “Tiny Moves” by Bleachers, a pop-rock band fronted by her husband, Jack Antonoff. Qualley, the daughter of fellow actress Andie MacDowell, was nominated for an Emmy in 2022 for her role in Maid, and had also been nominated for an Emmy for her role in Fosse/Verdon.
The upcoming Hulu series isn’t the first time Knox’s story has been brought to the screen—in addition to the 2016 documentary Amanda Knox, it was also dramatized in the 2011 Lifetime movie Amanda Knox: Murder on Trial in Italy, and again in the 2014 psychological thriller The Face of an Angel, starring Kate Beckinsale. The 2021 film Stillwater—which starred Matt Damon and Abigail Breslin—is also believed to be based off of the Knox case.
This as-of-yet untitled project, Variety reports, will consist of eight one-hour episodes; the official description states that the show is “based on the true story of how Knox was wrongfully convicted for the murder of her roommate Meredith Kercher and her 16-year odyssey to set herself free.” In addition to Knox’s involvement, Lewinsky will also produce; she brought her own story to the small screen back in 2021’s American Crime Story: Impeachment, which detailed her relationship in the late 1990s with U.S. President Bill Clinton.
Deadline reports that the role of Knox is currently being recast, and that Qualley’s leaving the show won’t impact production plans, as the series is due to begin filming in October.
