Decades Later, Joni Mitchell Is Still Cameron Crowe’s Best ‘Rolling Stone’ Interview — Plus the Rule He Broke to Get It (Exclusive)

Cameron Crowe still has a friend in Joni Mitchell.

In an interview with PEOPLE about his new memoir The Uncool, the writer and filmmaker, 68, says that the singer-songwriter, 81, was a standout interview for him as a young journalist.

For years, Mitchell had been his “dream” interview subject, Crowe writes in his book. He finally had the opportunity to profile her in 1979, when she released her album Mingus, a collaboration with jazz legend Charles Mingus. Mitchell was willing to sit for one interview about the project.

Crowe, who was writing for Rolling Stone at the time, knew that she was a famed “disbeliever” in the magazine, due to a previous article published about her romantic life.

“Everybody was trying to get that one big interview with her and people were even campaigning against me being the person,” Crowe tells PEOPLE. “If you know Joni Mitchell, when somebody says, ‘You shouldn’t have that young kid do your big interview’ — That’s going to get her to say yes to the young kid.”

In the memoir, Crowe writes that he showed Mitchell the interview before it was published — an action he would have been “crucified” for, but which was “key to [Mitchell’s] comfort.”

“She’s a beautiful rebel,” he says. “Luckily, she chose me to do this big interview. I just sat there and she gave me the best interview I had at the magazine.”

The pair kept up a friendship over the years. Mitchell attended the opening night of Crowe’s Almost Famous musical adaptation, based on his Oscar-winning 2000 film of the same name, in 2022. Crowe interviewed Mitchell again in 2021 for the Los Angeles Times.

Crowe is also developing a biopic on the musician, who he called “such an inspiring person” during an Oct. 28 interview on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.

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“We’ve been working on it for about four years. We have regular meetings where I can ask her anything and she speaks with her heart about all kinds of stuff,” Crowe said. “It’s a movie that will be not from a distance … This is from her perspective, her life, looking out.”

Crowe noted that Mitchell was a “pack rat” who held onto many mementos from her life and career.

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“She’s kept all of her costumes, all of her clothes, all of her instruments. She’s even still the landlady of her famous house in Laurel Canyon. So this is a really personal, wonderful look at her life and music.”

The Uncool is now available from Avid Reader Press, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, wherever books are sold. Crowe’s book tour  kicks off on Oct. 30 in Nashville.