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Ellise Shafer
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Getty Images Turns out, Amanda Seyfried‘s viral cover of Joni Mitchell’s “California” on “The Tonight Show” wasn’t pure coincidence — the Oscar-nominated actor was once attached to play the singer-songwriter in a biopic.
In an interview with British GQ, Seyfried revealed that she learned to play Mitchell’s “Blue” album on dulcimer, piano and guitar during the COVID-19 pandemic in preparation for a biopic. “It was a movie about her and [manager] Elliot Roberts,” she told British GQ. “Then he died – but not before I met him.”
She met Mitchell, too, who invited Seyfried to her L.A. home for a steak dinner. The two ended up listening to “Blue” together. “I sat on the floor petting one of the dogs. She told me a lot of stories,” Seyfried said. “She’s like, ‘We’ll put on the album and light a fire.’ After we listened to the album, she’s like, ‘It’s sparse, isn’t it?’” Seyfried responded: “It’s perfect!”
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Seyfried also learned the Mitchell classics “Both Sides Now” and “The Circle Game,” but the project didn’t end up working out. Still, Seyfried is proud of the musical accomplishment. “The day that I finished learning the last song on the album, ‘[The Last Time I Saw] Richard’, I fucking wept,” Seyfried said. “I felt like a bona fide musician, like I belong here. I felt like I had put my own flag on the top of the mountain. Because it was a fucking mountain, I tell you.”
“Almost Famous” helmer Cameron Crowe is now directing a different Mitchell biopic, reportedly set to star Anya Taylor-Joy and Meryl Streep as younger and older versions of the singer. “Apparently a lot of people reached out to Cameron Crowe and were like, ‘What the fuck are you doing, dude?’” Seyfried told British GQ. “I don’t know what he said, but from my knowledge, his version is, she’s really young and then she’s older.”
After her “California” cover went viral in March 2025, Seyfried told Variety that it wasn’t her taking a shot to star in Crowe’s biopic. “It was not an audition,” she said. “In fact, I didn’t even consider that, which is funny. What I know about that project is that I’m very, very much aged-out of [playing] young Joni.”
Read Seyfried’s full British GQ interview here.
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