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Co-showrunner Sally Bradford McKenna tells The Hollywood Reporter about the decision to include Knox, who was acquitted of her roommate’s 2007 murder.
By Ryan Gajewski
Senior Entertainment Reporter
The team behind Laid couldn’t be happier to have included Amanda Knox in the Peacock comedy series.
Adapted from the Australian project of the same name, the show centers on Ruby (Stephanie Hsu), who realizes that her previous lovers are dying and sets out to understand why this is happening. Zosia Mamet co-stars as Ruby’s best friend AJ, while other castmembers include Michael Angarano and Tommy Martinez.
One surprising member of the cast is Knox, who makes an appearance in the final episode of the first season that is currently streaming. Knox became a public figure after she was convicted and then ultimately acquitted of the 2007 murder of her roommate in Italy. Co-showrunner Sally Bradford McKenna describes herself to The Hollywood Reporter as a big true-crime fan who saw Knox as the right fit for a role, given the series’ story.
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“I’m obsessed with her,” Bradford McKenna says of Knox. “Like the character of AJ, I am obsessed with true crime. It really did fit in this show to have AJ be playing detective and trying to solve the mystery and get on the case.”
The Goldbergs alum continues, “We knew that we were going towards a moment where we needed a grand gesture. We thought she was perfect because, first of all, we were set in Seattle. We didn’t even realize that she lives in Seattle. We were trying to think of someone who is true crime but was acquitted of the crime. She was so game and so into it. She also is into comedy, and she was so excited to do this, and she was amazing. She was a really good actress, too.”
Bradford McKenna, who serves as co-showrunner of Laid alongside Nahnatchka Khan, also saw a connection between Knox’s path and the themes informing Hsu’s character. She says of Knox, “Her story is such a fucked-up story, and thematically of a girl in her 20s in college going off to study abroad and the juxtaposition of the darkest possible stakes against this backdrop of a woman just looking for love and dating. It tied in very nicely with Ruby’s story.”
Knox and then-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito were convicted in 2009 of the murder of Meredith Kercher, who was Knox’s roommate in Italy and found dead in their apartment two years prior. The convictions were overturned in 2011, and then after they were again found guilty in a retrial, the pair were exonerated by Italy’s Supreme Court of Cassation in 2015. Margaret Qualley is set to play Knox in a Hulu series about her life.
On Laid, when AJ tells Knox that she wants to hear about being in jail for a crime she didn’t commit, Knox quips about her situation, “Yeah, I don’t recommend it.”
Additionally, Bradford McKenna praises Hsu for helping audiences connect with a “genuinely unlikable” character like Ruby.
“We knew for the casting of Ruby, she needed to be someone you instantly like, who you instantly are rooting for,” she says. “We tried to write towards that, but really so much of that was just the casting of Stephanie. She’s so appealing and so likable.”
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