"I didn't feel scared." Lily Collins believes the ghosts of Ted Bundy's victims visited her.

For Lily Collins, preparing for a difficult role is nothing new.

In 2017, she battled her own demons with anorexia and bulimia in order to portray Ellen, a 20-year-old woman battling an eating disorder in the Netflix film To The Bone.

But during her preparation for her role as Ted Bundy’s girlfriend, Liz Kloepfer, in the Netflix original Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile, it wasn’t her personal demons she was dealing with, but the ghosts of more than 30 of Ted Bundy’s victims.

Watch the trailer for Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile. Post continues after video. 

Speaking to The Guardian, the 30-year-old British actress said she would wake up at 3:05am every single night while she was preparing for the role.

“I would go downstairs and have a cup of tea, trying to figure out why I had woken up again… I started being woken up by flashes of images, like the aftermath of a struggle,” she said in the interview.

The actress, who is the daughter of Phil Collins and Jill Tavelman, said that when the waking became a pattern, she took to the internet for answers.

“I discovered that 3am is the time when the veil between the realms is the thinnest and one can be visited,” she said, prompting her to believe that it was the victims of Ted Bundy trying to reach out to her.

The actress insisted it wasn’t a scary experience, saying she felt supported by the experience.

“I didn’t feel scared – I felt supported. I felt like people were saying: ‘We’re here listening. We’re here to support. Thank you for telling the story’,” she said.

Lily Collins portrays Ted Bundy's girlfriend Liz Kloepfer alongside Zac Efron, who portrays Ted Bundy, in Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile.

The film, which was directed by Emmy award winning filmmaker Joe Berlinger, was released on Netflix on May 3.

Who is Liz Kloepfer? 

After meeting in a Seattle bar, Elizabeth Kloepfer and Ted Bundy moved in together almost immediately.

Elizabeth, who changed her name to Liz Kendall after Bundy was caught, played a significant role in the Netflix documentary series Conversation with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes as well as in Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile.

She wrote a memoir called The Phantom Prince: My Life with Ted Bundy, in which she detailed her relationship with Ted Bundy.

“I handed Ted my life and said, ‘Here. Take care of me’,” she wrote.

“He did in a lot of ways, but I became more and more dependent upon him. When I felt his love, I was on top of the world; when I felt nothing from Ted, I felt that I was nothing."

In the memoir, she further detailed that Ted Bundy would leave her outside in the cold until he decided she could come back inside, but that he would then snap back into what she needed, which was "warm and loving".

One year in to their relationship, Liz suggested to Bundy that they should get married. She was worried about what her conservative parents would think of her living with a man out of wedlock. Bundy said if she was concerned, then they shouldn't get married.

Liz would later recall how she had her suspicions about Bundy when they were together. She believed the reports of the murders seemed to line up with the times Bundy would leave the house.

At one point, she tried to turn him into the police. The single mother approached the authorities and told them her boyfriend had a tendency to stalk women. She also told them she found a bowl of women’s underwear, and a knife, in their house.

The police didn’t have enough to arrest Bundy at the time, and Liz stayed with him.

You can watch Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile on Netflix. 

Want to learn more about Ted Bundy? Here are some related stories. 

• The untold story of what happened to serial killer Ted Bundy's daughter, Rose Bundy.
• Liz Kloepfer met the love of her life in a bar. He turned out to be Ted Bundy.
• The little-known story of serial killer Ted Bundy's first girlfriend, Diane Edwards.
• The faces we should be remembering when we talk about Ted Bundy.