Fans of Gary Sinise the actor will be comforted to hear that this
compelling third act of his life, filled with giving back and service to
others, doesn’t preclude his continuing with his chosen profession,
and the 64-year-old thespian has no plans to stop acting. He was in a
supporting role in the 2019 film SGT. Will Gardner, about Iraq War veteran
Will Gardner who returns home suffering from a traumatic brain injury
and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) sustained in combat.
And there’s more on the horizon for this consummate performer. “In
fact, I’ve got a couple of things I may be doing this year,” Sinise says,
“just smaller things with friends of mine who want me to be involved in
their projects. And something may very well come along — like another
television series or something like that — that’ll be of interest.” It just
takes the right fit. “There’s a great chapter in my book called “Perfect
Timing.” It was about CSI New York and how the timing of getting that
television series and the nine years that it lasted was perfect because it
just fit my life and what I wanted to do at that point.” As for the future,
Sinise considers, “I can play great-grandfathers, as long as I can keep
going and remember my lines.”
Right now, Sinise is happy to take the time to do some other types of
things that have become very important to him, especially being with
his family — Moira, his wife of forty years, their three children, and two
granddaughters. As he candidly reveals in Grateful American, his home
life hasn’t always been picture perfect, but these days their challenges
are more physical than emotional.
“My dad had a stroke a couple of years ago, and he has special
needs, so I’m trying to be home more, to help the family out here,”
Sinise reveals. He too, had a scary brush with death in 2012, while in
Washington, D.C. to do a charity concert with his band, as a car rear-
ended the vehicle he was traveling in. “I woke up in the emergency
room. I never saw it coming. I had a fracture in my neck and a
concussion. Thankfully, I woke up. It could have all been gone, and I
wouldn’t have known the difference.”
Fully recovered today, Gary Sinise certainly values his health and the
blessings that life has bestowed on him and hopes to keep paying
it forward to others for as long as he can. “The blessing here is
that I have had some success, and that I can take that success and
do something positive for other people with it. At the back of my
book, you’ll see a call to action. I decided to list a number of these
organizations and efforts that I’ve been involved with in the years
prior to the creation of my foundation, because they were important
catalysts to me.
Anything I can do to shine a spotlight on their work, help them raise
more money, help raise more awareness for them, I want to do.”
R.I.S.E. (Restoring Independence Supporting Empowerment)
builds specially adapted smart homes for wounded heroes
Credit: Gary Sinise Foundation
SUMMER 2019 11 FLYWASHINGTON.COM