Gary Sinise discusses decision to step away from acting amid family tragedy: 'I had to stop'

Gary Sinise is speaking up about his choice to leave Hollywood to care for his wife and late son during their cancer fights.

The CSI: NY star recently told Fox News that he suspended his acting career in 2019 and plans to relocate to Nashville in 2021 to be with his son, McCanna Anthony Sinise, who died in January of Chordoma, a rare spine disease, and his wife, Moira Harris, who was diagnosed with breast cancer.

Gary Sinise.

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"We were in the cancer fight at the time," Sinise said. "My wife was diagnosed with breast cancer." My son was diagnosed with this extremely uncommon malignancy within two months of one another. My father had recently suffered a stroke, leaving my mother alone, and I had to care for her. "I kind of had my hands full."

Sinise stated that Harris has since gone into remission and is cancer-free, but that his son's cancer struggle was "especially difficult." McCanna was diagnosed in 2018 and died earlier this year, at the age of 33.

"Our son was fighting this cancer with no cure," the Forrest Gump star explained. "Looking for medications, physicians, or anybody who could help him was like working full-time. Additionally, his cancer progressed and left him increasingly debilitated. "He needed more and more care."

Sinise officially retired from Hollywood after acting in 2020's 13 Reasons Why, where he played Dr. Robert Ellman, and Joe Bell, where he portrayed Sheriff Westin.

"I had to stop," he said. "Traveling away from the family for long periods of time wasn't possible with what we were going through."

As his family continues to mourn their son's loss, the actor stated that it was critical for him to fulfill his son's dying desire of releasing his songs. Sinise dropped Resurrection & Revival: Part 2 earlier this month.

"He had achieved something that he set out to do, which was to record all this music in May and make a full album of it," Sinise stated when asked about McCanna. "That gave me a lot of joy, just watching him kind of enjoy those moments."