Amanda Seyfried has been talking about the role that eluded her – that of Joni Mitchell in a biopic that never happened.
The actress has given an in-depth interview to GQ magazine, in which she explains what happened with that and her appearance playing the dulcimer on the Jimmy Fallon Show last year which went viral.
You may recall that Seyfried went on the show last year and sang a pitch perfect version of California from Mitchell’s classic Blue album. Fallon himself confirmed that “It was one of the most viral videos that ever went out of our show in the history of our show.”
And it won her praise from many ‘proper’ musician, including Beck, whom she literally bumped into on the Upper West Side in New York.
“I was walking a block. He jumped out of a car and he was like, ‘You were so great. My daughter has been learning to play that.’ And I was like, ‘This is fucking great.’ And we had a great conversation. I don’t know him, I’ve never met him before. Fucking musician Beck? Like, thank you, sir.”
Seyfried learned to play the dulcimer during lockdown whilst she was preparing for the Mitchell role. She also got to spend some quality time with Joni herself at her LA home.
“I sat on the floor petting one of the dogs,” she recalls. “She told me a lot of stories.” Then Mitchell put on Blue. “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?’” At this point in the interview the 40-year-old actress feigns fainting. “It’s perfect!”
Seyfried was diligent in her preparation and learned to play the whole of Blue. “The day that I finished learning the last song on the album, (The Last Time I Saw) Richard’, I fucking wept. 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.”
But of course that version of the biopic never happened, and now Cameron Crowe is directing a different one, without Seyfried. “Apparently a lot of people reached out to Cameron Crowe and were like, ‘What the fuck are you doing, dude?’” she says. “I don’t know what he said, but from my knowledge, his version is, she’s really young and then she’s older.”
Still, at least Seyfried is now proficient on the dulcimer. And she’ll always have that priceless evening in Joni’s company.
