Amanda Seyfried has shut down rumors that her viral cover of Joni Mitchell’s “California” was an intended audition to play the folk singer in a future biopic.
During an appearance last week on the Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Seyfried showed off both her vocal talents and dulcimer playing abilities with a pitch-perfect rendition of Mitchell’s 1971 classic. A clip of her performance has since gone viral on TikTok, leading several fans to speculate that the Mamma Mia! star was throwing her name into the running to play the 81-year-old icon in Cameron Crowe’s forthcoming biopic.
“Tell me you’re auditioning for a Joni Mitchell biopic without telling me you're auditioning…,” read one comment.
Seyfried is now setting the record straight, insisting that “it was not an audition.”
“In fact, I didn’t even consider that, which is funny,” the Mean Girls actor, 39, admitted on a new episode of the Just for Variety podcast. “What I know about that project is that I’m very, very much aged out of young Joni.”
Almost Famous director Crowe first announced in 2023 that he was working with Mitchell on a film based on her life and career.
It’s not yet been revealed who will portray a young Mitchell. However, Meryl Streep is reportedly set to star as the “Big Yellow Taxi” singer in her later years.
@fallontonight Amanda Seyfried brings out the dulcimer and sings a cover of Joni Mitchell’s “California”! #FallonTonight #TonightShow #AmandaSeyfried #JoniMitchell #JimmyFallon
♬ Amanda Seyfried Covers California by Joni Mitchell - FallonTonight
“I’m super-excited. We’re going to start in by the end of this year and hopefully have it done for Christmas next year,” Crowe told Ultimate Classic Rock in December 2024.
“It’s Joni’s life, not through anybody else’s prism. It's through her prism. It’s the characters who impacted her life that you know and a lot that you don’t know. And the music is so cinematic,” he teased.
The untitled biopic is eying a 2025 Christmas release date.
Seyfried is currently on a promotional tour for her new crime miniseries Long Bright River, an adaptation of Liz Moore’s best-selling 2020 novel of the same name.
The eight-episode show, now streaming on Peacock, follows Seyfried’s Mickey Fitzpatrick, a Philadelphia police officer who patrols a neighborhood hit hard by the opioid crisis. When a string of murders takes place in her district, Mickey realizes she might have a personal connection to the case.
