The Lifetime Television original movie Amanda Knox: Murder on Trial in Italy explores whether Amanda Knox (Hayden Panettiere), the Seattle honors student accused of murdering her college roommate Meredith Kercher (Amanda Fernando Stevens) in 2007, with her boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito (Paolo Romio) and acquaintance Rudy Guede (Djirbi Kebe), actually committed the crime or was herself a victim. Referred to as “Foxy Knoxy” by her Italian prosecutor, Guiliani Mignini (Vincent Riotta), and the press, Amanda was painted as an oversexed, remorseless killer during the two-year trial leading up to her conviction and subsequent sentencing to 26 years in jail. The film is also accompanied by an hour-long documentary, called Beyond the Headlines: Amanda Knox, featuring Amanda’s mother and father, as well as friends, investigators, prosecutors and legal scholars, as it takes viewers inside the Italian justice system to reveal what it’s like to be a foreigner who is locked up and convicted in another country.

During a recent conference call to promote the film’s premiere, actress Hayden Panettiere talked about what interested her in this project, her preparation to play the real-life Amanda Knox, what she thinks about the reaction the family has had to the film, why she never got a chance to actually meet Amanda and why she was so intrigued by the controversy surrounding the case. Check out what she had to say after the jump.