Amanda Seyfried said she cried after finishing the entire Joni Mitchell album Blue while preparing for a shelved Mitchell biopic, describing the moment as feeling like “a bona fide musician.”
Amanda Seyfried’s wipe-the-face kind of moment wasn’t during a premiere or a rehearsal. It happened when she finished learning the last song on Joni Mitchell’s 1971 masterpiece, Blue.
Seyfried said the breakthrough arrived while she was preparing for a project about Mitchell. When she reached the end of the album—learning it in full—she told GQ. “The day that I finished learning the last song on the album. ‘[The Last Time I Saw] Richard’. I fucking wept.” She added that she felt accepted in a way she hadn’t expected. “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.”.
The work itself was spread across multiple instruments. During the pandemic. Seyfried said she learned to play Mitchell’s Blue across the guitar. dulcimer. and piano—songs written to sound lived-in. spare. and exacting. For someone taking on Mitchell onscreen, that kind of preparation isn’t just technical. It’s an immersion.
That immersion included time with the person she was trying to become. Seyfried said she met Mitchell at her home in Los Angeles while preparing for the role. She described Mitchell as instructing the listening the way a teacher brings you back to the point. “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?’ … It’s perfect!”.
She later brought part of that learning into public view. Last year. Seyfried showcased what she’d been practicing on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. playing “California” on the dulcimer. She said the clip went viral because it wasn’t designed to be a moment. “The reason it was so viral was because it wasn’t meant to be,” Seyfried told GQ. “And because it was happy.”.
The biopic Seyfried was attached to has since been shelved. She was set to play Mitchell in a film about the iconic singer-songwriter, alongside Elliot Roberts, Mitchell’s manager and co-founder of Asylum Records. Roberts died in 2019.
While Seyfried’s project stalled, another Mitchell film kept moving. Director Cameron Crowe is behind a different version. with Meryl Streep slated to star as Mitchell in the later years of her life. Details remain tightly kept, but Seyfried said she knew people were reaching out to Crowe with direct frustration. She said she was aware of people messaging him asking. “‘What the fuck are you doing. dude?’” She also described what she understood of the approach: “his version is. she’s really young and then she’s older.”.
The through-line in all of it—pandemic practice. instrument mastery. a private meeting in Los Angeles. then the kind of tears you can’t rehearse—isn’t just about a role. For Seyfried, learning Blue wasn’t a checklist. It was a kind of entry into Mitchell’s world. one song at a time. until the last track finally gave her the feeling she said she’d been searching for: that she truly belonged there.
Amanda Seyfried Joni Mitchell Blue biopic Cameron Crowe Meryl Streep Elliot Roberts Asylum Records guitar dulcimer piano
She cried?? honestly i get it tho Blue is like… too much. Respect.
Wait so she met Joni Mitchell and Joni was like “light a fire”?? That’s wild. Also Amanda playing dulcimer and shit now makes sense why it sounded so real. I didn’t know you had to learn the whole album or whatever, thought it was just acting.
sooo is this the biopic that got shelved or whatever? bc if it’s not happening then why are they still saying she’s preparing. like maybe they changed the timeline? also i saw someone say she only cried because the producer told her to… idk could be wrong.
This is giving me secondhand vibes like if you listen to one sad album you become a “bona fide musician” lol. But also Joni Mitchell was probably coaching her better than any music teacher. I’m confused though—she learned guitar AND piano AND dulcimer during the pandemic?? that’s insane commitment or just a PR story. Either way Blue is the best, so whatever.