Seyfried Learned Full Blue Album for Axed Joni
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- Amanda Seyfried learned to play Joni Mitchell's entire 'Blue' album on dulcimer, piano, and guitar during the COVID-19 pandemic to prepare for a biopic about Mitchell and her manager Elliot Roberts.
- The biopic stalled after Roberts died, though not before Seyfried met him and traveled to Mitchell's L.A. home for a steak dinner where the two listened to 'Blue' together by the fire.
- Mitchell's reaction to hearing her own album was understated — she told Seyfried 'It's sparse, isn't it?' — to which Seyfried replied 'It's perfect!'
- Seyfried also learned Mitchell classics 'Both Sides Now' and 'The Circle Game,' and said she wept upon finishing the album's final track, '[The Last Time I Saw] Richard.'
- Cameron Crowe is now directing a separate Mitchell biopic reportedly starring Anya Taylor-Joy as young Joni and Meryl Streep as the older version, a project Seyfried says she is 'very, very much aged-out of.'
- Seyfried's viral 'California' cover on 'The Tonight Show' in March 2025 was not, she told Variety, an audition for Crowe's film — she said she didn't even consider it.
Why it matters: The story pulls back the curtain on a biopic that never happened and positions Seyfried as a serious Mitchell devotee rather than a passing fan. With Crowe's competing project moving forward at a major studio, Seyfried's account reframes her viral 'California' performance as the visible residue of years of private preparation — a pipeline of talent that studios couldn't convert into a film.
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