>> JARED BOWEN: I'm Jared Bowen.

Coming up on Open Studio: Chris Cooper and Marianne Leone-- scenes from a marriage.

Then, Jill Medvedow celebrates 25 years as director of the I.C.A.

and what's driven her to ensure contemporary art thrives.

Plus, we revisit our conversation with a man "wild and crazy" about art-- Steve Martin.

It's all now on Open Studio.

♪ ♪ >> BOWEN: We have a different look this week because, after a decade on the air, Open Studio is ending.

Our series finale is June 2.

So for the next few weeks, in our final shows, we'll have conversations about art with performers, artists, and arts leaders.

It's an EGOT lineup, actually, with Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony award winners all joining us.

First up tonight, Oscar-winning actor Chris Cooper and his wife, the actor and writer Marianne Leone.

They met in a New York acting school in 1979, and then didn't work together again until now, in the short film Nuts.

>> He was-- he was howling in the car.

I'd never heard him do that and I had to turn around.

>> Oh, my God!

Are you okay, Frenchie?

(Frenchie whimpers) Oh, my God.

>> I don't know...

I don't know.

>> Howling?

>> He... well, he was now... and then he was whimpering after that, so... (Frenchie whimpering) >> Oh, my God.

>> I'll, um...

I'll stay?

>> BOWEN: Marianne Leone wrote the script, Chris Cooper directed, and they shot it together in their home-- alone-- during the height of the COVID pandemic.

It's part of the anthology With/In streaming now on Starz.

We talked recently about working together, the characters that scare Cooper, and the local movie theater that needs saving.

Chris Cooper, Marianne Leone, thank you so much for being here.

I'm having these last conversations here on Open Studio just to talk about art, but we do have a project of yours to talk about.

But, this is what I love, that it's about you two together.

I've never interviewed you both together at the same time.

>> Right, right.

>> BOWEN: You're both actors.

You've been married for a very long time, and you just did your first piece together-- since 1983 was it?

>> It was... it's unbelievable.

Before 1983, this was...

The last time we had acted together was in Nancy Savoca, the filmmaker, her student film, her senior film at NYU, which won the Haig Manoogian Award-- first time given to a woman director.

And then all these years went by because too ethnic and... (laughing) >> BOWEN (laughs): Superstar.

>> Yes... yes, yes, yes.

>> BOWEN: So here you are during the pandemic, and you... they send you... you know that other people, other people who are housing together, cohabitating together during the pandemic, are shooting these little stories.

And they send you the equipment, which means because we're in the throes of the pandemic, you have to do it yourself.

And you make this little film, Nuts, which I thought was hysterical.

So... well, Chris, let me ask, you directed this film.

>> I directed it, and, and, and... >> BOWEN: In your own house.

>> In our own house.

And what they... they sent us these two luggage-size... full of equipment.

Full of equipment.

More than what we needed to shoot the film because ours was just bare bone.

And thanks to Marianne's brilliance, she was assigned to... she was asked to write the ten- or 15-minute script.

And she did it in such a way that the script that she wrote, which is unusual, we could shoot chronologically, which helped us big time.

>> Where's your mask?

>> Uh... it's in the car.

I, uh...

I put it on when I go in the stores.

>> Are you sure?

>> Yeah.

>> Because every time I go into the supermarket, and there's someone going cluelessly down the wrong aisle, it's usually a guy not wearing a mask who thinks he's invulnerable.

(Chris chuckling) >> Well, I don't think I'm invulnerable.

>> Good, cause you're not.

>> BOWEN: So what was it like to work together?

(Marianne laughing) >> You know, I mean, what Marianne came up with, what I'm so pleased about, is the final result is the closest... it, it, it was our relationship.

(Marianne laughs) I think our relationship came through really well.

>> Yeah, I think so, yeah.

It was fun.

>> And how... and how we kind of deal with each other.

>> BOWEN: Have you ever gotten so close to playing yourself on film?

>> This was the closest to me that I think I've ever played.

>> Right.

Right.

>> You know?

Yeah.

It was a pleasure.

It was-- >> I think I was a little like bitchier than normal, but... (all laughing) That may have been... maybe I hit upon something really truthful, sadly, but... >> BOWEN: Well, how do you... you both work... Because I know you very well, and so I...

I have seen how you're, you're so entwined as a... as a creative unit.

Did that develop?

Were you always like that once you came together?

>> I think-- >> I think we were.

I mean, I think we, you know, and even early in our relationship, doing scene work in acting school, you know, in class in New York, I mean, we really had a good back and forth.

>> We have the same training, you know.

>> And I so...

I mean, we, we are a team.

I mean, I so depend on Marianne reading any script that comes my way.

And oftentimes the, you know, there is a handful of scripts that I've almost turned away from... out of fear... (Jared chuckles) out of fear, and out of what is involved in performing this character.

And, and Marianne's... and what we're talking about is American Beauty, a film I did in, in the late '90s.

And the rewrites when they came, the rewrites kept getting darker and darker about this character.

And I said, "Man, do I really want to go there?"

And Marianne said, "Yeah, you're a little fearful of this one.

All the more reason to take this role."

What did he make you do?

(laughing): Oh.

Dad, you don't really think me and Mr. Burnham... >> Don't you laugh at me!

I will not sit back and watch my only son become a (muted)!

>> Jesus, what is it with you?!

>> (grunts) >> (groans) >> I swear to God, I'll throw you out of this house and never look at you again!

>> BOWEN: So that's interesting because you have to know Chris.

>> Right.

>> BOWEN: You have to know Chris as a person, as a talent, as an actor.

But, you know, you know how to push, when to push.

>> Also, I was a reader.

That was a job I had.

I was a reader at MGM, and it was what gave me courage to write was after reading script after script after script.

So it kind of gave me a good idea of what to expect.

>> This is when we had... when we were watching videos.

>> BOWEN: Yeah.

>> Yeah.

And I wrote video copy, too.

Yeah, that was weird.

(laughing): It was... >> BOWEN: So you have been writing for a long time now.

You've written about your son.

>> Mm-hmm.

>> BOWEN: You've written about your mother.

>> Mm-hmm.

>> BOWEN: Now you're writing about yourself.

>> I know, it's frightening.

(all laughing) >> BOWEN: You are hilarious.

But when... when did you decide, or when did you know that, that you should... that writing would become a core of who you are?

>> You know, I did it even when we were struggling actors.

I remember, like, I kept getting, "Too ethnic, too ethnic, too ethnic."

I mean, I knew I was a character actor.

I was not some, you know, blushing ingénue.

But I, I couldn't get work.

So my other three friends were like, "Yeah, we should just do a comedy group."

So we started writing sketch comedy, and it was a lot easier to get an agent to come, you know, and have a drink and laugh for an hour at West Bank Café or any of the other dives that we played in (Jared chuckles) than to watch Macbeth on Avenue D, you know what I mean?

So, so we got agents from this.

And that was, you know... so I was used to writing my own stuff.

>> BOWEN: And you've kept at it because that's the discipline, right?

>> Yeah.

Yeah.

I don't write every day.

I will be here to tell you.

(grumbles) I, I... you know, I go through periods where I just feel too enraged to do anything.

>> BOWEN: Well, to talk about news for a second, the West Newton Cinema, where I saw my first film.

>> What was it?

>> BOWEN: It was...

I'm not sure if I remember the title, it was a Raggedy Ann and Andy animated film.

Because my mom had grown up in Newton, so that was where we must have been visiting my grandparents.

And so that's...

I still remember it.

It was my... because who doesn't remember their first cinematic experience?

And I remember seeing it there.

The theater is imperiled, but you both... >> Right.

>> BOWEN: ...have come to... to the cause.

>> Because John Sayles was just here recently.

You interviewed him, and he's a dear friend, and we've known him forever, he stayed with us, and he did a reading of his new book, Jamie MacGillivray, at... in conjunction with Newtonville Books and West Newton Cinema.

And, you know, we were thinking... We met the owner of the theater, and I was so impressed, because I too went there as a little kid.

I could walk to that theater.

And, you know, they told us that it was going to be bought out by a big real estate developer and that they're trying to save it and make it into a nonprofit.

So Chris just did a video for them.

John did a video for them.

>> This is Chris Cooper and I'm asking the community to get behind the nonprofit West Newton Cinema in their effort to preserve this place that has been special to so many people since its opening in 1937.

>> If you want to keep seeing movies on a big screen with an audience, please donate to their capital campaign.

We can't keep making movies if there's nowhere to show them.

>> And we're hoping that the community can come together and help... and help this, you know, just keep this landmark theater.

You know, because... and maybe it can be a number of things, like there could be more writer, actor, people... writers who have film connections, doing things, you know, at the theater.

That would be... >> This...

This cinema, its floorplan is not like what you would generally imagine about a theater.

This has... this has room for... this has room for a small library if it wants, you know.

It... the uses of it could be... >> Yeah.

>> ...so wonderful and wide, you know, widespread.

>> Yeah.

>> Could be really put to... put to good use.

>> BOWEN: Cinema and film, that's still fundamental to both... who you both are.

>> Yes.

Yes.

>> It is.

And, and I must say, I think folks see it.

It's changing.

The business is really changing.

>> Yeah.

>> The studios have gone to family, kid friendly.

And it's... You know, what attracted me to film were the films of the '50s, '60s, '70s.

Simply human-to-human behavior.

And it is so changed.

>> Yeah.

>> You know.

>> Well, there's always been spectacle.

I mean, there's always been it.

>> Yeah, yeah, yeah.

>> I mean... >> Yeah.

>> But now we feel we'll be replaced by A.I.

soon, so it's good to be at the sunset (laughing): of our career.

It's like... >> BOWEN: I'm going to be replaced by A.I., too.

They can do that.

They can create these interviewers now.

So it saves on the bottom line, too.

>> (laughing): That's kind of horrifying.

>> BOWEN: Well, thank you both for being here.

I really appreciate having this additional conversation.

>> It seems weird not to be having pasta with sausage and broccoli.

>> BOWEN: Best cook, you are the best cook, I love your meals.

>> But I will make that for you again.

>> BOWEN: And I will be there soon.

>> Yes.

>> BOWEN: Thank you both.

>> Thank you for having us, Jared, thanks.

>> Thank you.

Thanks.

♪ ♪ >> BOWEN: Next, Jill Medvedow has been leading Boston's Institute of Contemporary Art for 25 years.

Something I've always seen in Medvedow is that she is a builder of community, a champion for voices long marginalized, and is someone who has ignited the arts as a provocative platform for activism and welcoming.

In other words, her vision of a museum is not the same-old, same-old.

Jill Medvedow, director of the I.C.A., thank you so much for being here.

>> Oh, it is my pleasure to be here with you.

>> BOWEN: Well, let me... these are all conversations about art, as I keep saying, but we do have something great to talk about, which is Simone Leigh, the fabulous show that you have on view right now that started at the Venice Biennale, an international launch for this show put the I.C.A.

in front of the world and now we have it here.

What does this moment represent?

>> It has been extraordinary past really, three years almost, since this project took off.

Including organizing a U.S. pavilion at the Venice Biennale during the pandemic.

So a lot of firsts.

The most important one of which is that Simone Leigh is the first Black woman to represent the United States at the Venice Biennale.

since the U.S. had a pavilion beginning in 1930.

>> BOWEN: Well, this exactly is what you are made of, and what the I.C.A.

is made of.

You're celebrating your 25th year as a director.

What do you... how do you see what a museum is today versus when you started?

>> That's such a big question.

I mean, the I.C.A.

as one museum is totally...

I mean it's profoundly different from, you know, being in the former police station on Boylston Street, which was just one of 25 kind of itinerant locations, to our beautiful Diller Scofidio + Renfro building on the Seaport, and now the Watershed.

Boston's a little unique because we were the first new art museum in nearly a century.

Nothing to be proud of for a city, I would say, though very proud to have led a change.

But museums generally, I think, are, you know, prioritizing relevance and relevance to broad, diverse communities.

And so putting the, both the visitor, the audience, the communities in the center of our work.

And you see this in different iterations, whether it's encyclopedic museums like here in Boston, whether it's the MFA, or the Gardner Museum, or, you know, the I.C.A.

For many museums, it's new, it's kind of the last few years.

For the I.C.A.

it's not new.

It's work we've been doing for a long time.

>> BOWEN: Some people are still intimidated by contemporary art.

I still walk into galleries and-- apologizes for tapping my mic there-- I still walk into galleries and think, "I'm not sure what I'm, I'm looking at."

Is that... is that okay?

>> That... not only is it okay, I...

I'm with you.

I still walk into galleries and I'm like, "What am I looking at?"

Actually, it's usually where I start, though.

What am I looking at?

And actually try to begin describing to myself or to others what are we looking at?

Is it paint on the canvas?

Is there a subject?

Is there movement?

Are there materials we recognize?

What are the questions that the artist might or might not be trying to grapple with or ask?

And I think trying to see what response it elicits.

I'd say the worse thing is the "meh" response.

Because when I see a work of art that I really dislike, I typically take that as a pretty exciting starting point.

>> BOWEN: Were you drawn to art as a child?

>> I was.

I made art as a child.

I grew up in New Haven, Connecticut, and my mother's best friend was an artist.

She and her family lived two houses behind us and my mother signed me up for art lessons.

But this friend of my mom's, her name was Joan, she made, like, you know, five-foot high still-lifes and portraits.

She sold them.

And so I, as a young kid, you know, a grade-school child was making five-foot, you know, high canvas still-lifes and landscape paintings.

And so that was important to me.

The other thing that changed my life, though, I'd say, was the Yale University Art Gallery, which is one of the great museums in our country with an extraordinary collection.

And my mother took me first and then I... >> BOWEN: How old?

How old were you?

>> You know, probably sixth grade, I'd say.

But then I began to be old enough to take the bus downtown.

We lived right in the city, so it was a direct bus route.

And the world opened up for me.

And for some crazy reason, you know, it...

I, I thought I got it.

You know, I either got the bug, or I had a sense that I understood what I was looking at or I didn't care.

But whereas New Haven was a kind of small, defined world, the Yale... you know, Yale University Art Gallery gave me a big universe.

>> BOWEN: Have you felt there's been a change?

Because there is still that notion that museums are elitist that we have to counter.

>> We have to counter it because it's not true.

What is true is that we still charge mostly, you know, admission; not all the time.

The I.C.A.

is free on, you know, Thursday nights and free on Monday... most Monday holidays, and free for everybody 18 and under.

So there's lots of points of access.

What... what I think, though, is that the... we have a ways to go.

I mean, the... art museums were mostly founded as places of White power and privilege.

And so we have to earn the trust and... of communities who typically were not part of our audience.

School museum trips, which used to be part of a curriculum, are no longer a given because that's how lots and lots of young people... >> BOWEN (quietly): Yeah.

>> ...were introduced to museums and then could find their own path.

But like, you know, you know, one of the things I admire most about you is that you combine curiosity, knowledge, and insight.

You do.

And that is something that I tried to model at the I.C.A.

>> BOWEN: Well, my whole entire being is driven by curiosity.

I thank you for, for acknowledging that.

And final question: we don't always get to see a lot of the permanent collection on view at the I.C.A., but is there... is there one piece that-- going back to your earlier point about what you saw at the Yale Art Museum-- is there one piece that you point toward or is there something that is just so emotionally resonant to you in the I.C.A.

's collection?

>> I think that I would point to Cornelia Parker's "Hanging Fire."

I love that work so much.

It was one of the first works to enter our collection and I love that... just to describe it, it is these kind of hung on, you know, almost invisible filaments, pieces of embers.

So it's sculptural, it hangs from the ceiling, it has movement, you know, when there's a breeze.

But the embers are from a house building that was torched by arson.

So out of what could be despair, and death, and danger, and destruction-- all Ds-- but out of that comes this sense of air, and breath, and life rising.

And to do that out of the most commonplace material that you could see in our fireplace, you know, in the fireplace or... and take... so take something that no one would think of as high art, right?

And transform it into this beautiful, moving, stirring, incredibly imaginative work of art kind of sums it up for me.

>> BOWEN: It's a beautiful summation, a beautiful ending.

Jill Medvedow, thank you so much.

>> Thank you.

Thank you, Jared, for all you do.

♪ ♪ >> BOWEN: As I think back to some of my favorite moments on this show, I recall Steve Martin.

We met in 2016 at the Museum of Fine Arts where it was clear the visual arts is something the comedian takes very seriously.

We were there to talk about the work of Canadian painter Lawren Harris.

Because Steve Martin, the longtime collector, had become a first-time curator.

>> You know, my wife and I will sometimes just sit and watch a painting like we'd watch a TV show.

You know, just sit and go, "Look at this," and, "Look at that."

>> BOWEN: For as long as Steve Martin has been Steve Martin-- a bright king of comedy, star of many a touchstone film... >> I'm going to buy you a diamond so big, it's going to make you puke!

>> BOWEN: ...he's also been a passionate student, patron, and collector of art.

How would you describe the place that art has had in your life?

>> Art has been very significant in my life.

Not only as a hobby, as a collector, but also socially.

Meeting people in the arts are... is always stimulating.

>> BOWEN: Did you have exposure since early childhood?

>> No.

I didn't get interested in art at all until college, when I was... when college did what it's supposed to do-- introduce you to new things.

>> BOWEN: About 20 years ago, shooting and performing in Canada, Martin encountered the work of painter Lawren Harris, now considered a Canadian national treasure.

In the 1920s and 30s, Harris boldly reinterpreted what he called the Great North with his solid, serene landscapes.

What was it about his work that first really seduced you?

>> I think he's a very stirring painter.

And he had a great accomplishment, and it's unfortunate, you know, that America knows of the Canadian comedians, and they know of the actors, and they know of the singers, but they know nothing about Canadian art.

>> BOWEN: So when offered the chance to make his curatorial debut with a Harris retrospective now at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Martin leapt.

>> For Harris, I think being alone in the mountains was very uplifting.

I mean, even if you look at some of these paintings, there's nothing organic in them.

Very rarely do you see a living tree-- the trees are dead.

So he's dealing with the spirituality of just the naked planet.

>> BOWEN: One where the light brims, bathing snow peaks, chasing clouds, and radiating off of icebergs.

>> It's almost like inner light.

I would call it reflected light versus inner light.

And, you know, those are fancy terms for just saying that the paintings really look good.

(they laugh) >> BOWEN: Embarking on his curatorial quest, Martin crisscrossed Canada much as Harris did, making it a point to see every painting in person before including it in the show.

I would imagine that there were a lot of revelations.

You think you know his work, and then when you see this expanse of it... what were they?

>> Well, one of the main ones was when you just have a passing familiarity with his work, you tend to think of them as blue and white, if you just look around.

But the more time I spent with them, I realized the range of color was vast-- colors that you can't even name.

You know?

It's like, if it's true that Inuits have 50 words for snow, you know, Harris has 50 gradations of blue.

>> BOWEN: Harris was a pioneer painter, arriving at a style all his own.

But Martin points out in this companion show from the MFA's own collection, American artists were developing a similar aesthetic.

With artists like Georgia O'Keeffe, Edward Weston and Arthur Dove, the Modernist movement was taking hold across the Americas.

What was the experience like to go through the MFA's collection?

>> You know, to look in a museum's basement is something everyone should have the opportunity to do who has an interest in art.

Because down there are fantastic pictures that they just don't have time to show, or room to show.

>> BOWEN: And did... did they inform each other, or did you understand more about Harris through those, or understand more about the American artists?

>> No, it's more about what Harris's relationship is to these Modernist painters.

Now, these painters are not a group.

They didn't have a manifesto among them.

But you feel the companionship, even as their styles are diverse, that they're presenting something new and disparate yet unified.

>> BOWEN: And purely ideal.

♪ ♪ >> BOWEN: And that is all for this edition of Open Studio.

Next week artist Rob "ProBlak" Gibbs on his proclivity for positivity.

And Pulitzer Prize-winning art critic Sebastian Smee on the power of the pen.

And please join me on June 2nd as we say farewell with two very special guests.

I'll see you back here next week.

Until then, I'm Jared Bowen, thanks for watching.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪