Gary Sinise Opens Up About Leaving Hollywood and Losing His Son to Cancer: “I Just Want to Be Around Family”

Gary Sinise is stand­ing in a bright green grove out­side his rur­al Nashville-area home, smil­ing as he talks about the star­ring role that’s now his favorite — “Papa” to his five grand­chil­dren, ages 1 to 8.

“It’s just the most won­der­ful thing,” says the For­rest Gump and CSI: NY actor, 70, who moved to Ten­nessee near­ly two years ago. Ear­li­er that morn­ing, he’d han­dled the school run, and it’s not unusu­al to find him hang­ing out at a Chuck E. Cheese or a local tram­po­line park.

“He spoils them rot­ten,” says Sinise’s daugh­ter Sophie, 36, laugh­ing. “There’s always ice cream at Papa’s house. They know they’ll get fed a lot of it when they come. And hugs — lots of hugs.”

That love, Sinise says, kept him going through the hard­est chap­ter of his life — the loss of his son, Mac, who died in Jan­u­ary 2024 at 33 after a five-year bat­tle with a rare bone can­cer.

A Life Turned Upside Down

Sinise was one of the most rec­og­niz­able actors of the ’90s — earn­ing an Oscar nom­i­na­tion for For­rest Gump, star­ring in Apol­lo 13, and head­lin­ing CSI: NY for nine sea­sons. But every­thing changed in 2018.

That sum­mer, his wife of near­ly 44 years, Moira Har­ris, was diag­nosed with stage 3 breast can­cer. And just as they were nav­i­gat­ing her treat­ment, their son Mac was diag­nosed with chor­do­ma, a rare spinal can­cer that affects only 300 peo­ple a year in the U.S.

“It looked like a mon­ster grab­bing my son’s spine,” Sinise recalls of the MRI scan. “Sud­den­ly, we were fight­ing two bat­tles at once.”

Moira endured eight rounds of chemo and 35 radi­a­tion treat­ments before being declared can­cer-free. But Mac’s tumor returned. Doc­tors removed it, but the dis­ease kept com­ing back. Between film shoots, Sinise spent every free minute research­ing the ill­ness and call­ing doc­tors.

“Dad dove into the storm,” says his daugh­ter Ella, 32. “He doesn’t do things halfway. It was hard to watch, but it showed his char­ac­ter — he doesn’t let adver­si­ty slow him down.”

A Father’s Mission

By 2020, Mac was in the hos­pi­tal six of the first eight months of the year. That’s when Sinise decid­ed to step away from act­ing entire­ly. “I start­ed putting every­thing I had into try­ing to find a mir­a­cle for Mac,” he says.

He became what he calls his son’s “air-traf­fic con­troller.” “I didn’t want Mac to think about the next treat­ment or wor­ry. So I thought about can­cer all the time. You’re try­ing to take the pain away. A few times I felt like I couldn’t do enough. Then you say a lit­tle prayer, get back up, and go back into the fight.”

Through his work with the Gary Sinise Foun­da­tion — which sup­ports vet­er­ans, first respon­ders, and their fam­i­lies — he’d already seen how oth­ers endured unimag­in­able loss. “God pre­pared me for this,” he says soft­ly.

Faith, Family, and Music

Even after Mac became par­a­lyzed from the chest down, the family’s deep Catholic faith kept them going. “Hope keeps you in the fight,” Sinise says.

Moira, still recov­er­ing from her own health issues, encour­aged her son to keep cre­at­ing music. A grad­u­ate of USC’s music school and a life­long drum­mer, Mac taught him­self har­mon­i­ca and began com­pos­ing again.

“With the har­mon­i­ca, he learned to play Oh Shenan­doah,” says Sophie. “As his body grew weak­er, his faith grew stronger. He car­ried on with so much brav­ery.”

In 2023, Mac record­ed his orig­i­nal music in Nashville with pro­duc­er Oliv­er Schnee. Those ses­sions became his album Res­ur­rec­tion & Revival. Just weeks lat­er, on Dec. 30, Mac was hos­pi­tal­ized again. He passed away Jan. 5, 2024, sur­round­ed by fam­i­ly.

“He didn’t want to go,” Sinise says. “But I know he was at peace. He dealt with it with grace and courage.”

Keeping Mac’s Legacy Alive

In the months that fol­lowed, Sinise dis­cov­ered more of Mac’s unfin­ished com­po­si­tions on his lap­top. He recruit­ed friends and musi­cians to com­plete them. The result: Res­ur­rec­tion & Revival – Parts 1 & 2, released through the Gary Sinise Foun­da­tion — with pro­ceeds sup­port­ing the caus­es Mac loved.

“I want peo­ple to hear his music,” Sinise says. “I’m on a mis­sion.”

This May, Sinise will co-host the Nation­al Memo­r­i­al Day Con­cert in Wash­ing­ton, D.C. — an event he’s par­tic­i­pat­ed in for years — and hopes to one day see Mac’s music per­formed by a live orches­tra.

“I thought the oth­er day, ‘What hap­pens when all these projects are done?’” he admits. “Well, I’m going to drag them on as long as I can.”

A New Chapter in Tennessee

Today, Sinise and Moira live qui­et­ly in their Ten­nessee home, close to fam­i­ly. The move, he says, was also prac­ti­cal: “With no act­ing income, I want­ed to spend less. But I also want­ed to be near my kids and grand­kids.”

The man once known world­wide as Lieu­tenant Dan has found his truest role off-screen. “Since los­ing Mac, I hold my daugh­ters a lot tighter,” he says. “You think about what’s real­ly impor­tant.”

As for return­ing to Hol­ly­wood, Sinise isn’t rul­ing it out entire­ly — but for now, the stage lights have dimmed by choice.

“Some­thing might come along and it’ll feel right,” he says. “But it’s hard­er to leave home now. I just want to be around fam­i­ly.”

“Mac Left Us Things That Are Beautiful.”

Even in grief, Sinise’s pur­pose remains clear: to share his son’s sto­ry — and music — with the world. “Mac left us things that are beau­ti­ful,” he says qui­et­ly. “I want peo­ple to know who he was.”