Patricia Arquette didn't "anticipate" that she's get the best roles of her career in her 50s

She said: "I didn't anticipate that. [The influx of streaming services has] opened a lot of doors for different storytellers and more diversity, so it's a good time for everybody right now.

"Certainly in my case, being a 50-year-old woman, I didn't imagine I'd be getting good parts like this. I don't know how long it will last for, so knock on wood."

Hulu's upcoming dark drama is based on the disturbing true story of Gypsy Rose - played by Joey King - and Dee Dee Blanchard (Arquette) and a complex mother-daughter relationship that culminated in murder.

Patricia - who has two children, Enzo, 30, with former partner Paul Ross and Harlow, 16, with ex-husband Thomas Jane - also admitted that her son and daughter were reluctant for her to take on the anthology project because of its bleak plot.

Speaking to USA Today, Patricia added: "I told my kids I was thinking about doing this project, and they were like, 'No, Mom, don't do it.' I was like, 'Guys, you know this is pretend for me. I'm not going to poison you.' "

The 'Medium' star shared a lot of "common feelings" with her character because her daughter went away to school and she felt "phobic" over their separation.

"My daughter ended up going away to school right before we started this, so I was having a lot of feelings of, 'How will I know where she is? How can I defend her? I'm going to miss her so bad.'

"So I took these normal, common feelings and extended them to almost phobic levels. For Dee Dee, when Gypsy would be in the other room, that was a trauma - for her just to be out of her sight felt too dangerous.

"This little girl takes control, and makes a lot of very important choices that have big implications. That's what's really different about this story: Very few victims rise up and take their power back, certainly not in this way."