Meryl Streep is to play Joni Mitchell in a forthcoming biopic of the singer-songwriter directed by Cameron Crowe, according to record executive Clive Davis.
Davis confirmed the rumours surrounding the casting at his pre-Grammys party on Saturday, reports Rolling Stone. Last year, Anya Taylor-Joy was linked to the project in the role of the younger Mitchell, as was Streep’s Mamma Mia! co-star Amanda Seyfried.
Crowe, whose best-known film is the music drama Almost Famous, has been attached to the project for some years, and in 2023 said that he hoped for a release date before 2026. Speaking three years ago, Crowe explained that – unlike recent films based on brief periods in the life of Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen – the film is not based on a biographical book about the star, but rather Mitchell’s own account of her life.
“It’s Joni’s life, not [seen] through anybody else’s prism,” he said. “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.”
Streep has previously received two Oscar nominations for playing real-life musicians: the violinist Roberta Guaspari in 1999’s Music of the Heart and the titular character in Florence Foster Jenkins, about the life of the amateur singer, in 2016.
