Back when the mysterious scandal surrounding Natalia Grace Barnett made headlines, Imogen Faith-Reid — the actor who would one day play her — wasn’t aware of it. As gripping as the case was, it didn’t exactly make U.K. headlines, and Faith-Reid only came to learn of the story when she landed a starring role in Hulu’s “Good American Family.”

“I saw that it was an open casting, and saw that it was going to be filmed in America, and I genuinely was like, ‘Well, I’m not going to get that, but what can I do?,'” the actor recalled in an interview with IndieWire. “After three or four recalls, I got the job and it just felt so surreal. I was in a restaurant, I look at my phone, see the contract, and I genuinely just freaked out. It was such a surreal moment.”

In the series,...