It Sucks We Won’t See Amanda Seyfried’s Joni Mitchell

Those of us who saw Mona Fastvold’s fabulous The Testament of Ann Lee came away with the same idea: Amanda Seyfried needs to keep doing movie musicals. Lin-Manuel Miranda got the memo, but the universe is still on notice. Seyfried revealed to GQ that she was cast as Joni Mitchell in a biopic that is no longer happening. “It was a movie about her and [manager] Elliot Roberts,” she said. “Then he died — but not before I met him.” During preparation, Seyfried even met Mitchell for a steak dinner, and the two listened to Blue together. “She’s like, ‘We’ll put on the album and light a fire,’” Seyfried recalled. “After we listened to the album, she’s like, ‘It’s sparse, isn’t it?’”

In order to get ready for the part, Seyfried even learned how to play the entirety of Blue. “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.” That led to her beloved appearance on The Tonight Show, where she played “California” on the dulcimer for Jimmy Fallon. She sounded beautiful and movie ready.

Now, Almost Famous filmmaker Cameron Crowe is reportedly directing an entirely separate Mitchell biopic starring Seyfried’s Mamma Mia! mama, Meryl Streep. “Apparently a lot of people reached out to Cameron Crowe and were like, ‘What the fuck are you doing, dude?’” Seyfried said. “I don’t know what he said, but from my knowledge, his version is, she’s really young and then she’s older.” Crowe should do the right thing: Cast Seyfried as the 16-year-old Mitchell. We’ll pretend we don’t notice.