The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox is not the end of her story. Not even close.
The next chapter in Amanda Knox‘s saga is Mouth of the Wolf: Amanda Knox Returns to Italy, which debuts Monday, Jan. 26, on Hulu. The documentary (trailer below) marks the directorial debut of Christopher Robinson, a poet, a novelist and, oh yeah, Knox’s husband. Knox and Robinson produce the documentary film — they executive produced The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox alongside Monica Lewinsky.
In 2009, a twentysomething Knox was wrongly convicted of murdering her roommate in Italy while studying abroad. She spent four years in prison before being fully exonerated by the country’s highest court in 2015 — but all of that has been covered by various films, series, books and podcasts. Mouth of the Wolf catches viewers up on what has transpired in her life (spoiler: a lot) since then, including Knox’s return to Italy and a meeting with her former prosecutor, the ultimate frenemy, Giuliano Mignini.
“Interwoven with Knox’s journey are candid accounts from other wrongfully accused individuals that explore the systemic failures, accountability, redemption and enduring human cost of injustice,” the documentary’s logline reads.
The Hollywood Reporter caught up with Knox and Robinson ahead of today’s announcement. Their life isn’t all tragedy — quite the contrary. In addition to being parents to a four-year-old girl and two-year-old boy, Knox is working on a one-woman show. A comedy show. Don’t laugh — not at her, at least. Knox, who has dabbled in stand-up comedy over the past two years, says she once opened for recent Golden Globes repeat host Nikki Glaser in her home city Seattle. It wasn’t a small show, either.
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This is your directorial debut, Christopher, though you both executive produced the scripted series. Do you plan on continuing in film and TV outside the quote-unquote “Amanda Knox” business?
CHRISTOPHER ROBINSON It’s funny you should ask that because we’re in the midst of actively developing a couple different projects right now. Amanda and I have our own little boutique production company, and we are pursuing scripted stories and unscripted stories right now, not ones that we’re at liberty to give many details about.
AMANDA KNOX The stories that come to us are stories that are deeply invested in issues of injustice and misrepresentation. People really trust us in that world and in that space, and so we are very gently holding some very sensitive stories. Right now, those are stories that we’re working on, but we also are working on some very pivot-y [projects].
ROBINSON We’re both nerds and we love comedy. We’re working on some comedy projects. We’re both sci-fi fans. But we also have a deep radar for injustice and trauma and what it takes to rebuild after those things, which is a lot of what this doc is about. That element of injustice is probably going to be something that we’ll never leave, even as we pivot, because it’s so deeply a part of Amanda’s life, and being next to her and having a firsthand seat to her journey to rebuild her life, I’ve seen what it takes, and it’s really inspired me. And that’s one of the things I really want to share with the world. So that informs our work and informs this documentary.
Amanda, as terrible as it is to have your specific lane be your “lane,” so to speak, you do have this built-in unique experience and expertise.
KNOX Yeah, well, especially when people come to me saying, “I’m really scared to tell my story and to tell my side of things. I don’t know who to trust. I feel like the only person I can trust is you because you know what this is and you know what the stakes are.”
Your daughter is now four and your son is two. When and how do you think you’re going to explain to them why strangers know mommy?
KNOX Well, I actually have a stand-up bit about that, because she’s already started asking. In part because here she is, going to Italy with us and wondering what’s going on.
ROBINSON “Who is this strange man that you’re introducing me to?” And having no understanding that this is the man who put Amanda in prison.
KNOX Because they’re kids, they’re picking up that mom is a little more stressed than usual. And also my daughter is so — I think she takes after me and that she’s she’s very aware of people’s emotions in the room. She’ll come up to me and ask me things like, “Mommy, are you happy?” And then I have to have, like, a really complex answer. (Laughs.) But she’s absolutely already started asking questions, and I believe in giving age-appropriate answers. The age-appropriate way to talk to a four year old is to tell a story. I’ll tell her the story of when Mommy was young and she went to Italy and someone hurt her friend, and then a man named Giuliano Mignini believed that Mommy hurt her friend, and so he put her in jail. And then Mommy had to prove that she was innocent, and then was let out of jail. But then Mommy was really sad and struggling for a long time.
So here we are going back to Italy, and now she’ll go and want to pretend like— you know how [little girls] will pretend to be Elsa (from Frozen)? She wants to pretend to be Mommy and be like, “Mommy, let’s play Mommy Goes to Italy” at the playground. She’ll, like, get behind some bars and be like, “Let me out!”
You’d better hope the other parents at the park know your story…
KNOX (Laughs.) Yeah, exactly. Like, “She must have a vivid imagination.” No, that’s a direct quote!
OK let’s not bury the lede here: you do stand-up comedy?
KNOX I do stand-up, that is true. I’m not like touring or anything—
ROBINSON She has opened for Nikki Glaser.
KNOX I’ve been blessed with really lovely friendships in the comedy community, particularly with female comedians who recognize my sense of humor. I do stand-up comedy here at home, and I am working currently on a one-woman show that I’m hoping I can get out either this year or next.
What clubs have you done?
KNOX We did the Whitney Cummings Roast at the Comedy Store. (To Christopher) Where have I done here?
ROBINSON Amanda’s taken a nontraditional route into the comedy world. She has such a unique background…
It’s a pretty nontraditional route for anything she does…
ROBINSON Yeah. Nikki Glaser came through Seattle and was playing at McCaw Hall in front of 3,000 people, and, you know, invited Amanda to open for her. And that was like, I don’t know, the eighth time Amanda had ever [done stand-up]?
KNOX But it was so fun! I gotta say, I’m not at all intimidated. I think that finding the ability to laugh at the bad things that have happened to you and find the absurdity in the human condition — and I really love how comedy allows me to feel connected to other people. It’s a way of turning the temperature down a little bit and making fun of myself. I just, I really enjoy it. And so I’ve been just quietly going about my comedic ways…
ROBINSON And some of that is in the documentary as well. One of the goals I had was to show a round human. A big part of Amanda is silly. She’s a goofball, and always has been a goofball. That was weaponized against her in Italy, right? She’s also a performer. She’s musical. Music plays a big role in the documentary. She used music as a way to survive prison.
KNOX And speaking of funny stories, my daughter is watching me sort of tinker at the piano and playing these original songs that we put into the documentary, and I caught her this one time, just by herself at the piano, maybe making up her own song. I overheard her just going, “I’m sad/I’m sad!” And I was like that is the sickest burn I’ve ever seen.
How much material do you have in your act? Is it like five minutes, 10 minutes…
KNOX Oh, I have an hour!
ROBINSON She’s actually performed two full hourlong shows — one in Nashville and one here in Seattle — sort of workshopping her one-woman show.
Wow I undersold you — how long have you been doing stand-up?
KNOX Well, I mean, I’ve been doing public speaking for a very long time. So, stand-up, I’ve been doing for like two years. But it’s not like I’m doing it every weekend.
What’s the future of the one-woman show?
KNOX It’s highly comedic. I performed it twice last year. I’m in the phase of, like, doing some final workshopping and developing — just, you know, tightening, honing, elevating it. And I’ve been in talks with the Seattle Repertory Theater about putting that on either this year or next.
So you’ve made a few podcasts, written some books, the scripted Hulu series — there’s even already been a documentary (on Netflix) and you were in it. What is there left to clear up with a new documentary?
ROBINSON Yeah, the scripted series is really anchored in 2007 to 2015, the kind of meat of Amanda’s wrongful conviction. Mouth of the Wolf lives largely in the present day, and it’s about Amanda’s long journey to figure out how to reconcile with the country of Italy and with the man who sent her to prison.
KNOX And with my ongoing wrongful conviction.
ROBINSON So fun fact, Amanda remains wrongly convicted of lesser crime: criminal slander. That was not really discussed in The Twisted Tale, but Mouth of the Wolf does cover her recent slander trials. As recent as 2024, she was back in court defending herself in Florence. We filmed that trip as well. And Amanda has actually met with her prosecutor twice, and he has said things to her that are startling, and their relationship has continued to develop. So, the process of finding peace and closure is not one that just ends on a button — it’s a journey, and Mouth of the Wolf is showing how that journey has continued.
KNOX Something that was really important to us in the making of this documentary was asking people who are consumers of the true crime genre to appreciate that the worst experiences of people’s lives — the way that you normally see them depicted as a courtroom drama — do not just end there. The legal saga for me is still ongoing but also the finding closure to an injustice.
The scripted series portrayed you as being almost incredibly gracious to the man who put you in prison. I would like to think I’d be that guy, but I’d probably be forever seething. Where are you at?
KNOX I’m really excited for you to see the documentary. I’m actually really nervous about it. I’m more nervous about this coming out than The Twisted Tale because — I mean, look, my husband is taking out his camera and videotaping me when I’m having some really difficult moments. And they’re all, like, happening right now — this isn’t just this bad thing that happened to me 20 years ago, this is a thing that is happening to me right now. I am still reckoning with the pain and the hurt and the fear, and yet I feel privileged to be alive and this deep sense of like pursuit of justice that was denied. It’s a really emotional documentary because of the content, but also because of this like crazy access that my husband has…
ROBINSON There’s another person in this film who’s seething: Amanda’s mom. She’s a big, important character in the film. And like for her, Giuliano Mignini is the man who locked up her daughter, stole her daughter away. She is not at a place and probably will never be at a place where she wants to forgive that guy. She’s an important touchstone for the audience of this film because they will identify with that. I identify with that. But I also see what Amanda is doing here, and I see the superpower that she has, because she has transformed her trauma into into power, frankly. I have never seen her feel more powerful than when she walked into that meeting with her prosecutor, because she knew that if she could be kind to that man, then there was nothing that he could do to harm her, right? It just like it flipped everything on its head.
To be clear, was the meeting we see at the end of the scripted series filmed for the documentary?
KNOX What you see in The Twisted Tale is the first meeting with with Giuliano (in 2022). What you see in this documentary is the second encounter (in 2024)…
ROBINSON …where the conversation has evolved and things that Mignini was not willing to say at first— I don’t want to give it away.
What is your relationship with Mignini? Do you… like him? Are you friends?
KNOX I care about him. I care about his well-being. I respect him in a number of ways, like the willingness that he has had to be vulnerable with me. That said, I still have unresolved anger. (Pauses.) I think that every day I try to appreciate him in the fullness of his humanity. One thing that people have asked me — because I continue to correspond with him to this day — is like, “Why? Why are you continuing to correspond with him? What good do you get out of that?” And it’s like, well, I’m not thinking what do I get out of it. At this point, I have a very meaningful relationship with him — meaningful to him and meaningful to me, right? I feel accountable to that. I have unprecedented access to him — to his heart and to his mind, and the journey that we depict in this documentary is how I got to that point. But to this day, the thing that I think of when I think of my relationship with him is one of care. I’m holding him.
ROBINSON It’s worth noting that he’s taken some big risks as well. Even agreeing to participate in these films by me while him and Amanda met is a big deal. And, you know, we showed him all the footage in this documentary, and he consented to us putting it out there. So, you know, there’s complicated aspects to the relationship — you’ll see a lot of them in the documentary.
KNOX I don’t hold back.
ROBINSON This is an important corollary to Amanda, as, you know, compassion guru…
KNOX Don’t call me that! (Laughs.)
ROBINSON It’s not some Jesus turn-the-other-cheek thing. She’s approaching this man with compassion, but she’s also holding him to account, and she’s doing so in a way that doesn’t let the truth fall by the wayside. Because the truth matters. It’s a unique balancing act to see her hold firm to her convictions and not let him off the hook, and yet, to do so with kindness.
How does he feel about the way he was portrayed in The Twisted Tale?
KNOX I don’t think I’m allowed to say. I haven’t gotten his permission. But he has done a few interviews since The Twisted Tale came out. I don’t want to speak for him. He’s obviously told me everything he thinks about every episode, but yeah, I don’t want to speak for him without his permission.
