>> JARED BOWEN: I'm Jared Bowen, coming up on Open Studio, for our final show, the stars align-- Grammy winning singer-songwriter Lori McKenna; the stellar Frank Stella; and Tony-winning actor Alan Cumming.

It's all now on Open Studio.

♪ ♪ This is our final show.

Open Studio takes its own bow tonight after a decade on the air.

So I invited back two people who've made sitting in those chairs back there both profoundly moving and entertaining.

First up is Grammy-winner Lori McKenna, the Stoughton singer-songwriter who launched into the Boston music scene in the 1990s.

Wisely, Nashville caught on to her songwriting talents, bringing her buckets of awards and acclaim.

I love how she observes the quiet details that most of us toss away-- the little moments that make our lives most meaningful, as she does in her song "The Balladeer."

>> ♪ The balladeer waits in the wings ♪ ♪ Tugging on her dress, tuning her strings ♪ ♪ All her whiskey-faded cigarette-blown dreams ♪ ♪ She brings herself to her own knees ♪ ♪ With every line so delicate ♪ ♪ She sings every song that she knows ♪ >> BOWEN: Lori McKenna, thank you for being on the final show.

I have so enjoyed our conversations over the years on television and radio.

I've loved to sit here as you're playing.

I'm really honored that you would do this.

>> Oh, my goodness, thank you for thinking of me.

And it's just an honor to be here, I appreciate it.

>> BOWEN: Well, I've been starting a lot of these interviews the same way, with the same question: why do you do what you do?

>> I always say it's the only job I could do for, like, ten hours straight.

Like, I can sit, you know, and try to write a song, like, all day, or days, you know?

And there's sort of nothing else I can, you know, I can-- my brain will hold on to like that, the way songs will hold on to me.

But I think that you have to, I-- you have to consider it a craft and you have to respect it like a craft.

But I think that sort of giving it the respect of it being a little bit of work is also important, you know, and... >> BOWEN: That's so interesting because obviously song and recordings are lasting.

So it can never be-- can it ever be good enough?

>> Yeah, I mean, definitely not.

I always think of like when they talk about painters, you know, like would go back and change things.

In songs, we can always do that.

It's easy enough to do that live or it's easy enough, like, to change little phrases or take out a "just," or take out a word that doesn't line up anymore in the phrase as in a live show performance.

That's why I think the live part of what I do, even though it isn't the easiest part for me, is also an important part.

And I guess I throw perfect around a lot, but I like the sense of the word meaning what it, meaning not really being perfect, and not really done.

(chuckles) >> BOWEN: Why is performing not necessarily the easiest for you?

>> The songwriting is my favorite part of the piece.

And I love that I have the privilege to perform the song that I've written or been part of writing.

But performance is like the most vulnerable piece for me, because I'm not-- those aren't my strengths, you know?

Like, I'm not, like, my range is quite small and my confidence on stage isn't, you know, the greatest.

But I feel like it's a privilege that I get to interpret the songs myself.

And people will listen to me.

And so I also feel like I am a better writer because of the fact that I know that a song is made to come out of someone's mouth in front of somebody.

(laughs) It's made for us to communicate through music.

>> BOWEN: Well, that's interesting, because I think about confidence a lot and how we use it.

And so you have one level of confidence or maybe less of a level of confidence for performing.

But I would imagine much more confidence for songwriting.

So how do you use it there?

>> I think just because I've done it so, I've done it so many years now, but I also still love it as much as I did in the beginning.

Like, I don't know, maybe that's where, like, at some point I found peace in the fact that if I still like this so much all these years later, and people still want to write with me, I must be okay at this, like, it must be, you know, nobody's told me, you know, to get another job yet.

So I'm like, I finally, you know, feel like, um, you know, nobody can be the best songwriter in the world.

But I can try, I can give it my best.

And I've really made so many connections that way, just musically.

>> BOWEN: Well, I wonder about that, too.

Yeah, they're not taking the jobs away.

They keep giving you more awards.

So I think that's where you settle in all of this.

But you work with some of the biggest personalities, everybody from Taylor Swift to Lady Gaga.

Big, big personalities.

And maybe they're just big personalities on the stage.

What happens when you are just sitting in a room writing with major figures like that?

>> So you know you're there for a purpose, but then finding your place in the song is a really fun part of it for me.

Because if the artist is in the room, you know that they're the artist.

So they, the sort of, the seed of the song needs to come from their experience, what's on their heart that day.

But your job, my job, the co-writer's jobs can be cheerleader, editor, you know, like all the different parts of the song that you need to bring because the artist is sitting there being the artist.

And in my experience with those, those larger-than-life people in the writing room has always been sort of, you know, just very raw and stripped down.

And my job is, you know, therapist or best friend, or, you know, like I said, cheerleader.

Like, how do I help that person get the best song out of their guts today, you know?

(laughs) >> BOWEN: Well, I guess I'll end there, too.

And it goes back to what you said just at the beginning of this interview, is how you use song for-- in songwriting for yourself to understand everything.

So now that you have been doing this for so long, where are you in your life?

Where, how is it helping you out at this moment?

>> Most important people in my life have been people that I've met co-writing, or, you know, Mary Gauthier, for example, who I met here in Boston.

Like, and I may have said this to you before, when we've talked about-- I, I love sad songs and I still love sad songs, but I learned from, like, "Humble and Kind," for example, that everything doesn't have to be sad to, you know, affect someone, you know?

Like, I would say, I can't make you dance, so I'm going to try to make you cry!

(laughs) But maybe I can figure out someday how to make people dance too.

I don't know, but I'm trying to find more of that, that service part of songs now.

The thing about songwriting is you never know at all.

There's always something else, another page to flip, and try to find something else from it.

So that's where I'm at now.

I'm more curious as to what else, you know, do I, have I missed from this?

I have another privilege of finding it.

>> BOWEN: Well, I remember you playing "Humble and Kind" here and me fighting back tears.

>> ♪ Don't steal, don't cheat, don't lie ♪ ♪ I know you've got mountains to climb ♪ ♪ But always stay humble and kind ♪ >> BOWEN: Does that say something about me or you?

>> No, it's true, it's true, but it's, like, you know, it's those things of what, that same song the next day like, you know, could maybe bring a smile.

I'm trying to find more of those instead of every song someone, you know, dying in every song.

(laughs) Try to make that not happen as much!

>> BOWEN: Well, I just, as I started by saying, I just adore spending time with you, and thank you for being on this final show.

>> Likewise, thank you for always supporting me and having me, and just, like, and listening.

I appreciate it, yeah.

♪ ♪ >> BOWEN:: Coming up, my final guest, Alan Cumming.

But first, one of the great pleasures I had on this show, and one of the moments I was most starstruck-- which doesn't often happen with me-- was in 2017 when I sat down with the painter Frank Stella.

As a young artist in the 1960s, he made a seismic splash on the New York art scene.

Museums and critics swooned.

Sixty years later, they still do, and he's one of our most revered living artists.

We met at the Addison Gallery of American Art, right on the campus that helped to launch his career.

The Addison Gallery of American Art sits squarely on the bucolic campus of Phillips Academy, a museum filled with modern masters.

It stands just as it did in the 1950s, when young aspiring artist Frank Stella went to school here.

>> I'm still doing the same thing 60 years later that I was doing here.

>> BOWEN: With a new retrospective of his work in prints, he's now the showcase here.

But before his art populated museum walls, before his career caught fire with the same energy that animates his work, Malden native Frank Stella was, well... >> I had a "delinquency" problem, as they say, and I was sent here so I wouldn't go to public high school.

>> BOWEN: Stella found his salvation in wrestling and art.

His mother was an artist and his father painted houses to pay for medical school.

But it was here, at a school filled with works like this Jackson Pollock he still remembers, that Stella got his groove.

>> One of the things here is that the paint was free.

(Bowen chuckles) And I know you laugh, but it's a pretty big deal for students.

I was pretty wasteful.

But the ability to waste is part of the way that you feel a sense of confidence, a sense of what you want to do.

>> BOWEN: In relatively short order, Stella moved from what he calls the privilege of Phillips Academy to the privilege of Princeton and then on to New York, a place that teemed with artists like him, who, in the 1950s and '60s, would redefine art in post-war America.

>> It was a scene, but a negotiable scene for someone who's really interested in it.

>> BOWEN: Were you welcomed?

I've always wondered that, about how easy... >> Well, you know, I think I was, I think anybody was welcome if you did it, and people knew you were working at it.

>> BOWEN: Abstract expressionism had been the rage, but Stella went a different direction-- what was termed minimalism.

>> The idea was that it would be very straightforward and you could see it all at once.

It was a straightforward, simple image.

>> BOWEN: His Black Series made him an art world star.

He was just in his early 20s when he was featured in the Museum of Modern Art.

And he had a full retrospective there just a decade later.

>> I was able to get enough money to quit, you know, odd jobs.

I mean, that's almost what every artist, or actors or writers-- everybody who comes to New York and wants to do something wants to be freed from having another job.

And that's success.

>> BOWEN: But he didn't coast-- instead, Stella moved away from minimalism, finding the complexities in geometry and how shapes co-existed.

>> When it works well, these shapes relate in a way of not overlapping or being next to each other, but-- I don't like to use this word-- one shape is penetrating the other, as it were.

And, but what happens there is there's a kind of tension that's like what engineers call, when something is bent under force or something, it's spring-loaded.

So there is a sense in which that triangle goes in and then it could be expelled.

>> BOWEN: For the next 30-some years, he continued to push and explore.

What had once been his simple, muted images exploded into fantasias of color, forms and texture.

The minimalist had become the maximalist.

>> I think I'm kind of fussy.

I don't consider myself a maximalist.

There's a lot I leave out.

(laughs) >> BOWEN: Really?

>> Or I, yes, I wouldn't put in, yes.

>> BOWEN: Even in the latter works?

>> Yes, I think so, yes.

Well, I was thinking that's one of the advantages of geometry, you know.

I don't, I don't feel any, you know, I don't need to put, you know, naked girls or Donald Duck in my painting.

>> BOWEN: That said, Stella concedes there is a term that may apply to his work-- passive-aggressive.

>> I mean that's only what I've been told.

>> BOWEN: Do you think it's true?

>> Um... One of the things about the paintings is they are probably aggressive, but not in... because they're trying so hard to be out there.

And, you know, I guess that gets tiring and gets on your nerves.

But, I mean, but they are almost confrontational in a way, trying to-- but in a way, it's trying to come to the viewer.

>> BOWEN: Looking back at 40 years of his work laid out here, Stella says each piece brims with its own personality, but none of it, or him, is precious.

>> My father didn't care that much about my being an artist.

You know, it didn't thrill him, but I mean, the idea, as long I could do what I wanted, you know, as long as I wasn't a burden on society.

And that's the way I feel about the work.

As long as it's not a burden, it's okay.

♪ ♪ >> BOWEN: Now for my last guest, Alan Cumming.

He's an actor, singer, writer, and advocate.

He has boundless energy, fills every room he's in and delivers dramatic performances that are arresting in their rawness.

But whether he's performing Miley Cyrus or Macbeth, he grounds his approach in thought and truth.

Alan Cumming, thank you, you are our last guest.

>> Jared, if I can't be your first, at least I can be your last.

>> BOWEN: (laughs) >> BOWEN: You're the Bette Midler of this show.

>>: Many people have said that.

(laughs) >> BOWEN: Well, let's talk about endings.

You have endings all the time because you end roles and you go on to new ones.

You end films, you go on to new ones.

What is that like?

That constant cycle of endings and beginnings?

>> Well, I think you get used to it.

I always find, you know, when I do films or plays with young actors and they always go, "I can't believe it's over!"

And I think, "Why not?

Did you not read your contract?"

Did you not see the poster?

>> BOWEN: (laughs) >> But I think what's, what's nice about it as you get older is that you realize that the magic that you had, the people that you connected with, that will always stay, you know, that will always remain.

And what I love about being me, or being an actor, is that, you know, you won't see someone for years, and all of a sudden you'll see them, and you'll be taken right back to that moment.

So you have a special connection with people because, you know, in my line of work, you get very intimate, very fast, it's sort of a crash course in intimacy with people.

Sometimes literally.

And so that never goes away, you kind of... it's a really beautiful thing to go through life, and reliving these little, you know, special connections you've had with people because of your work.

I actually really enjoy it, and also I'm very...

I'm one of these people that I, just, I always kind of, you know like a piece of music has a phrase?

I always think of my work like that.

It's always going to come to an end.

And I'm usually ready for it to happen.

>> BOWEN: You just made me think of one of my favorite questions over the years has been to ask actors how much of their characters ultimately stay with them, or how long they stay with them?

>> I have... (sighs) had the misfortune to not let some characters go a long time ago, and it affected me personally very badly.

So I'm very diligent and vigilant about that.

Especially when they're sort of darker characters.

I've done, I mean, and to the point where I was really worried about-- I did this, that play "Bent" by Martin Sherman in the West End, gosh, about 15 years ago now.

And I was very worried about taking that home and that infusing my real life, so I kind of, I brought my husband and our dogs, and, you know, we had parties every night.

And actually it was the most bleak, bleak, dark, despairing thing I've ever done, actually, or up there.

So, you know, I think, I think, I don't really let things, and also it takes you a long time to process.

You know, it takes a while once you've done something so intense.

So I quite, I think it's important to let go.

And usually because I'm so busy, I'm always on to something completely different, which I like, or I go on a holiday or I do something, or I cut my hair off, you know?

I mean, I make a line in the sand.

>> BOWEN: And it's all a reflection of that, those early times are very difficult, but this is the effort that you make to exorcize the characters.

>> Yes, that was-- the thing I was referencing was, I mean, it's kind of, sort of very cliché, I played Hamlet.

And I just kind of had a nervous breakdown.

In order to play people who are having nervous breakdowns, you have to feel like you're having one, so you have to learn how to be able to access those feelings authentically, and translate them to an audience, but at the same time, pull yourself back from the brink, and that takes some time and some finesse.

>> BOWEN: Well, talk about the beginning part of the process.

How much of that has changed for you over the years?

How much of finding your character has evolved?

>> I think I'm lighter now in terms of the way I approach things.

I think when I was younger, I would be much more sort of, you know, looking at it much more scientifically and, kind of, you know, seriously, and not wanting to, much more like a sort of a chemical equation.

I realize that, you know, for example, I'm going to do a film with Brian Cox in the summer, and already I am thinking about this, whenever I tell someone about it, I realize that in my mind, sort of subconsciously, I've already made some decisions about the character.

So I don't really-- I just allow that to happen.

I trust myself, I think that's the thing.

Another thing about being older is that you, you know, it seems to be going okay, so why, if it ain't broke, you know?

So I just let it simmer in my subconscious and then do it.

And I think when I was much younger, I was sort of a bit more, you know, I used to think acting was all about putting things on top of yourself, layers of whatever, you know?

Sort of ideas and kind of accents-- and it is, you have to do those things.

But actually it's about letting yourself come through.

And the more you allow that, the more authentic you are, the more you connect with people properly.

>> BOWEN: The connecting fascinates me too.

Well, so you're gonna be with Brian Cox, an incredible actor.

By the way, when he was on the show, he told me that he based his Winston Churchill on Stewie from Family Guy.

Partly-- but based it on Stewie from Family Guy.

(laughter) >> Such a kook!

He's so nuts.

I really love him, did you... we did Carpool Karaoke.

>> BOWEN: I saw it!

>> So you know what a kook he is.

>> ♪ Caledonia ♪ ♪ You're calling me ♪ ♪ And I'm going home ♪ >> BOWEN: I guess what I'm asking is what if you see another actor's process, >> You shouldn't be able to see the cogs going around, you know, to me you should just be like a real person.

I mean, I think that's the thing.

Acting is not that difficult, you just have to pretend to be someone else and mean it.

And so when you make it more complicated, and you try to do sort of clever, clever things, you can, it's like seeing behind the curtain, you know, of the Wizard of Oz.

And it just doesn't... and there are certain actors that I just always think do that.

And I sometimes have to work with them.

>> BOWEN: I was thinking about you when Harry Belafonte died recently.

>> Yes.

>> BOWEN: And you have tied activism to your role in your platform as well, it was so important.

Not that to make this all about my history here, but I remember him telling me that he was an activist first, artist second.

How do you see your platform and what you want to do in the world and change in the world?

>> I would, I think I see myself as a human being who has strong opinions, very strong opinions.

And can't really do work that would compromise those opinions.

So, yes, it's like I just feel like, you know, I feel like I'm a person going through the world, and there are certain things I think, "No, I've got to speak out about this."

And then also I have a job that enables me to sometimes amplify that feeling.

So yes, I would kind of agree with Harry in a way.

But I feel in a way sometimes the word activist is over... overused or overprescribed and I feel like I feel like I'm an artist who has a big platform and a loud mouth.

>> BOWEN: Are there consequences?

The further along you get into your career, how much, how much freedom do you have for expression?

>> I feel like I can, I feel, you know, I feel I'm in a great position, I feel I can do whatever I like.

I feel like I don't-- I don't worry about what I think and feel as a man is going to harm my career.

If that's what you mean, I don't...

I've never felt that actually.

Maybe early on I was a bit worried about it, but once I got into my stride, I feel, actually, you know, I think that's why people like me, is because I'm my own man, and I say what I feel when I, you know, what you see is what you get, and I'm authentic.

And I think hopefully that comes through in my work as well as my person.

>> BOWEN: What's the name of your new cabaret show?

>> Alan Cumming Is Not Acting His Age.

Is that the one?

>> BOWEN: Yes.

Where is age coming into play for you right now?

>> (laughs) Well, I'm 58.

I know it's hard to believe, Jared, I know, I know.

But I'm 58, so I'm nearly 60, and it's just hilarious.

And... but I don't fear what my idea of that is.

And so it made me think, well, what is that?

Who decides what that idea is?

I'm not, you know, I'm a grown-up, I've got mortgages and things like that and all that stuff.

I'm not, like, a crazy person.

But I obviously have a life that is a little different and I'm more connected to younger people, I think, than most people of my age.

And I'm more connected, probably, to the idea of youth, or what youth means, in a way, because I... of my mindset.

But I also am really fascinated with who gets to decide what is age appropriate.

Who are these people?

I have this idea that there's a sort of people in white coats with clipboards and tight sphincters that sort of say things like, you know, "Wear more cardigans," and all that.

And I just, that to me is really fascinating.

I think we've allowed, like, many things in our culture, we allow other people to dictate to us how to live our lives.

And for me, being someone who, I discover I've not done that, I'm now like, why are we doing... why would you do that anyway?

So that's, that's really interesting.

Although talking of the film with Brian, in that character-- in that film, I play a grandad.

I'm a grandad!

>> BOWEN: Well, we will continue the conversation in other forms, I have no doubt, thank you so much.

>> Jared, I'm so honored to be your last, I really am.

And you've always been so, so lovely to talk to, on your show and in real life, and I know of other people who've been on your show agree with me that you really are one of the greats.

>> BOWEN: Thank you.

That was very sweet of you to say.

>> Jared!

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

I'm grateful to you all for the years of watching, for the emails, the calls, and feedback.

For cornering me in museums and theaters to tell me what I should be seeing, whom I should be interviewing.

I thank my extraordinarily talented colleagues who I've worked with over the last ten years.

And I thank the crew, my friends here in the studio I've been working alongside for all of my GBH career.

I'm no Julia Child, but they indulge me anyway.

Many of you have asked what's next.

GBH has committed to expanding its arts and culture coverage with a new effort expected to launch in the fall.

And I'll be a part of that.

Of all the incredible moments I've had in this career, one has lived with me more than any other.

When I asked the late, great Oscar-winning actor Olympia Dukakis if she had anything else to share, she did-- a poem by the Spanish poet Federico Garcia Lorca.

And it captures fully my own fundamental belief in art.

As she left it with me, I now leave it with you.

"The poem, the song, the picture, "is only water drawn from the well of the people.

"And it should be given back to them in a cup of beauty "so that they may drink.

And in drinking, understand themselves."

I'm Jared Bowen, thanks for watching.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪