Gary Sinise Opens Up About Leaving Hollywood and Losing His Son to Cancer: ‘I Just Want to Be Around Family’ (Exclusive)

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

“It’s just the most wonderful thing,” the actor says.

Earlier in the day, Sinise, 70, handled the school run, but it’s not uncommon to spot the Oscar-nominated actor hanging out with the grandkids at Chuck E. Cheese or a local trampoline park.

“He spoils them rotten,” says Sinise’s daughter Sophie, 36, of her and her sister Ella’s children, who always find two things at Papa’s house: ice cream (“They know they’ll get fed a lot of it when they come,” he admits) and hugs. “Being able to love on them and love on our daughters, that’s helped me a lot.” 

That love kept him afloat after he walked away from his Hollywood career in 2019 to care for his son Mac when he was diagnosed with bone cancer. In the year since losing Mac, who died in January 2024 at 33, the actor has found comfort in his close-knit family and his Tennessee home, and a new purpose in keeping Mac’s memory alive.

“Mac left us things that are beautiful,” says Sinise. “I want people to know who he was.”

An actor in demand since starring in Forrest Gump and Apollo 13 in the early ’90s (he’s appeared in more than 50 feature films and TV shows, including all nine seasons of CSI: NY), Sinise saw his world turn upside down in the summer of 2018.

That’s when his wife of nearly 44 years, Moira, 71, whom he met when he co-founded Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre Company and the two were aspiring actors, was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer. And just as the couple were navigating her care, they learned that Mac, then 27, the second of their three kids, had a tumor on his lower backbone.

“It looked like a monster grabbing my son’s spine,” Sinise recalls of the MRI scan showing Mac had a bone cancer known as chordoma, which affects only 300 people in the U.S. per year. Suddenly, the actor was grappling with how to help them both: “It was a one-two punch.”

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After eight chemo treatments and 35 radiation treatments, Moira was declared cancer-free, but Mac’s condition worsened. Doctors removed his tumor, but he was among the minority of chordoma patients whose cancer returns. During breaks on-set while shooting films and the Netflix series 13 Reasons Why, Sinise called doctors and researched the disease.

“Dad dove into the storm,” says his daughter Ella, 32. “Whatever’s going on in his life, he goes full on. He did amazing, but it was hard to watch because it was traumatizing. It’s really a testimony to his character — he doesn’t let adversity slow him down.”

In 2020, Mac was in the hospital for six of the first eight months of the year. “That’s when I stopped acting,” Sinise says. “I started putting everything I had into trying to find a miracle for Mac.”

He became his son’s “air traffic controller”: “I didn’t want Mac to be thinking of the next treatment or to 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, or I didn’t know what to do. Then you say a little prayer, get back up and go back into the fight.”

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Sinise has seen other families go through similar battles through his work supporting veterans and first responders and their families through the Gary Sinise Foundation, which he established in 2011: “I’ve wrapped my arms around lots of kids who have lost a mom or a dad. I’ve been around people that have persevered through difficult things. It’s given me strength. There’s no question God prepared me well for dealing with our loss.” 

Even after tumors paralyzed Mac from the chest down and restricted the full use of his arms, the family leaned on their deep Catholic faith and didn’t lose hope. “Hope keeps you in the fight,” Sinise says. “You could see tumors on his body. You knew the drugs weren’t working. But I wasn’t thinking we were going to lose him.”

Moira, whose mobility is also limited due to chronic back issues, encouraged Mac, a musician and composer who’d graduated from the University of Southern California music school, to teach himself harmonica, one of the few instruments he could still play. 

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Mac, who worked at the foundation writing music for promotional videos, had been a drummer since Sinise bought him a starter drum set when he was nine, sometimes sitting in with Sinise’s Lt. Dan Band (named for Sinise’s Forrest Gump role as a wounded Vietman vet). With the harmonica, Mac learned to play the folk tune “Oh Shenandoah.” And, says his sister Sophie: “As his body grew weaker and weaker, his faith grew stronger. He carried on in his body and his soul and his spirit with so much bravery and strength.”

In 2023, Mac reconnected with a USC friend, composer Oliver Schnee, who helped him revive and arrange some of his long-dormant compositions. By Mac’s 33rd birthday in November, Gary’s foundation and family had moved from L.A. to Tennessee—attractive because of its proximity to military bases and lower cost of living (with no acting income, “I wanted to spend less,” Sinise says). Mac spent his birthday recording his music in Nashville for an album, which became Resurrection & Revival.

But the next month, on Dec. 30, he was back in the hospital, a St. Augustine prayer book at his side. Mac died Jan. 5, 2024, surrounded by family. “He kept wanting to stay. He didn’t want to go. But I know Mac was at peace at the end. He dealt with it with grace and courage,” Sinise says.

A tragedy like that “can destroy you or it can make you come together. We pulled together quite a lot,” Sinise says. Sophie says her parents grew even closer. “She’s my dad’s number one supporter,” Sophie says of their mom, Moira. “And she was Mac’s prayer warrior.”

He knows it’s his way of coping with grief: “I thought the other day, ‘What happens when all these projects are done?’ Well, I’m going to drag them on as long as I can.”

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As for acting, Sinise isn’t sure when — or if — he’ll make a return. “Something may come along and it’ll be right, but it’s harder to leave home now,” he says. “I just want to be around family. Since losing Mac, I hold my daughters a lot tighter. You think about the things that are really important.”