Joni Mitchell will be portrayed by Meryl Streep in a biopic directed by Cameron Crowe

The biopic dedicated to Joni Mitchell is finally taking shape. Meryl Streep will play the Canadian singer-songwriter. The news, confirming rumors that had already been circulating for some time, was made official by Clive Davis, the veteran record executive and founder of Arista Records, now at the helm of Sony Music Entertainment.

The project has been in the works for about four years under director Cameron Crowe, who has stressed the deeply personal nature of the film. Crowe has said he meets regularly with Joni Mitchell, free to discuss any subject with her in a direct, unfiltered dialogue. The artist, for her part, has kept every piece of her material history: stage costumes, instruments, personal belongings, and she still owns the famous house in Laurel Canyon.

According to the director, these elements will make the biopic an intimate, authentic portrait, able to weave together private life and artistic journey, offering an inside look at the music and human experience of one of the central figures in North American song.

This isn't the first time the actress has played a musician: in 1999 she portrayed violinist Roberta Gasparri in "Music of the Heart" ("La musica del cuore"), earning two Oscar nominations, and in 2026 she played Florence Foster Jenkins in "Florence", a film based on the true story of the opera singer. Anya Taylor-Joy or Amanda Seyfried could play the young Mitchell, but for now this remains an unconfirmed rumor.

Crowe is a longtime friend of the Canadian singer-songwriter, whose real name is Roberta Joan Anderson: the two met in 1979 during an interview for Rolling Stone. He has previously explained that, unlike other films about artists such as Bob Dylan or Bruce Springsteen, this biopic is not based on a book, but on the account Mitchell herself has given of her own life.

Always driven by a pained yet clear-eyed romanticism, Joni Mitchell embodies the quintessence of the female singer-songwriter tradition. Her testimony on pain and the vain pursuit of happiness reaches its purest expression on her “Blue“. From then on she became the foremost exponent of “confessional folk.”

Her weight in American songwriting has been decisive: she is recognized as one of the leading founding female figures, alongside Carole King and Laura Nyro. As the years passed, folk progressively lost centrality in her musical language, making way for sounds increasingly close to blues and jazz. This evolution led her to collaborate with leading musicians such as Pat Metheny, Jaco Pastorius, Herbie Hancock, Michael Brecker and Charles Mingus.

Joni Mitchell is also known for her strong ties to the visual arts and for a painting talent she has cultivated consistently over the years. As she herself has stated, “I'm a painter first, a musician second,” and this attitude is reflected in the hands-on approach she takes to her album artwork and covers, often built from original paintings or photographic compositions she conceived herself.

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