Amanda Seyfried gave one of last year’s best and most explosive performances in “The Testament of Ann Lee,” a bonkers period musical. She also sang in the two “Mamma Mia” movies (with a third potentially on the horizon) and the Oscar-winning “Les Misérables.”
But she very nearly starred as one of America’s greatest singer-songwriters in a biopic of Joni Mitchell that would have centered on the musician’s relationship with her manager, Elliot Roberts, who remained her manager until his death in 2019 at age 76.
In a GQ profile of the actress published Monday, Seyfried recounted the night she spent talking to Mitchell about the part.
“I sat on the floor petting one of the dogs,” Seyfried told GQ. “She told me a lot of stories.”
During the pandemic, Seyfried doubled down on her preparation for the role, learning to play all of the songs on Mitchell’s beloved album “Blue” (“alternating between piano, guitar and dulcimer,” according to the profile), along with other Mitchell classics.
“The day that I finished learning the last song on the album, ‘[The Last Time I Saw] Richard,’ I fucking wept,” Seyfried told GQ. “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 f–king mountain, I tell you.”
The project never came together, perhaps because of Roberts’ passing (Seyfried got to meet him before he died) or because of a competing biographical Mitchell project being mounted by Cameron Crowe. But last year, she did get to perform “California” on Jimmy Fallon’s “The Tonight Show.” Watch it below!
