An Evening with Gary Sinise

good evening good evening there we go welcome to an evening with Gary Sinise I'm Kurt Graham the director of the Truman library and it's great pleasure to welcome you all up out here to unity temple on the plaza and beautiful Kansas City where the Sun even shined for a little while today wasn't that great it's wonderful wonderful I want to acknowledge and thank everybody who was responsible for bringing this together not only our staff of the Truman library but of course the Truman library Institute our nonprofit partner who does such a great job with all these events I also want to acknowledge Vivien Jennings from rainy-day books who was also of course responsible for pulling this together want to acknowledge Clyde Wendel who is the chairman of our board and any other board members in the Truman library Institute who are here with us this is one of many programs that we hope you have joined and will join us for in the future we do some fantastic programming and the one way you can make sure you always know what we're doing is to be a member of the Institute so if you're not a member we hope that you'll sign up and become a member and get our eblasts and know what's going on we have some great programs coming up including as you may know our wild about Harry annual gala will feature Madeleine Albright in early May that's on may 2nd we hope that you'll you'll be joining us for that and some other great programs along the way it's my pleasure tonight to introduce our guests we have of course Gary Sinise who really doesn't need an introduction I'm sure to this crowd famous famous actor who has done some amazing things won all kinds of awards but the thing I want to mention I'm gonna go light on the bio and and let mister vondre do some of that introducing but but what I wanted to say to this crowd tonight was that if you are someone who is interested in the things that Gary Sinise is interested in chances are you're very interested in Harry Truman because what mr. Truman stood for as a veteran someone who served in World War one when he didn't have to he was way beyond the age when that would have been a requirement and the the affinity that he had for those men with who he served in in World War one and battery D many of many descendants are here in this crowd tonight I'm sure here in Kansas City but that's a very significant thing of course mr. Sinise has made his career and his a great personal legacy revolves around all that he has done to help veteran communities and this incredible book that he's written about being a grateful American and you know no matter how bad things are and how frustrated we are with certain aspects of whatever frustrates you the fact of the matter is we're a very we have a lot to be grateful for in this nation and I think that this this book is something that will be a reminder that indeed I just want to say one more thing about who's gonna be on the stage tonight as you know David vondre Lee columnist from the Washington Post will be moderating tonight's discussion we're very fortunate to have David here with us he is a columnist for The Washington Post as you know and I will tell you as someone who is charged with the care and keeping and propagation of the Truman legacy I'm so grateful to have David vondre Lee on our team he is one of the great opinion writers and thought leaders of our time and often times people think of a place like Kansas City you know we live in what they call the flyover district ever heard that term the flyover here in Kansas City they have no idea who we are what we are what we represent I know we find that term a little bit offensive and I'll tell you what when I think about what makes Kansas City a great place David vondre Lee comes top-of-mind we're very very fortunate to have a guy like David in our or band unable to do these kinds of programs for us so without any further remarks from me I'm gonna ask you to please help me welcome to the stage Gary Sinise and David vondre Lee [Applause] so I imagine that won't be the last one of those for tonight but it gets us off to a good start thank you all very much for coming out it's nice to have a night with no snow that we can do this and I take that as a great omen it's an honor and a pleasure to be here with this great American on so many levels and that's one of the things we'll talk about this guy is a great American in ways that you may not even realize it's my pleasure to be here with one of the greatest actors of his generation to talk to him myself for 40 or 45 minutes and then we'll take 15 or 20 minutes of questions and just to plant the idea early in the program these will be questions not speeches once we get to the audience participation and definitely no requests to read the screenplay you keep in your desk drawer any conversation with an actor inevitably is the discussion of great roles and we'll touch on a number of those but let's start with the role of Gary Sinise where do you come from tell us a little bit about your path into into life think you're from Chicago I was conceived at Naval Base Anacostia my dad served in the Navy in the early 50s he comes from a family of there's there was three sons his father served in World War one when Harry Truman sir he was as he drove an ambulance in France during the Battle of the Argonne and then he met my my grandmother and they got married and had three three boys and settled on the south side of Chicago and my two uncles served in World War two one was on a ship in the Pacific during the invasions of Iwo Jima and Okinawa the other the eldest son served in world war ii as a navigator on a b-17 bomber over europe flying 30 missions over Europe and then my dad served in the Navy in the early 50s during the Korean War and after the Navy my mom and dad I was actually my dad was still in the Navy as I said I was conceived at Naval Base Anacostia outside of DC and my dad was in the Navy until March 25th 1955 and I was born March 17th 1955 so I I just by about a week I'm a Navy brat thank you and so they settled on the south side of Chicago my dad's a film editor I write about this in the book because it kind of travels he learned the film business in the Navy it's funny I was just in Florida and I played a couple of concerts with my band at Naval Air Station Jacksonville and Naval Air Station Pensacola and those were the bases that my dad went to after Great Lakes Naval Base in in Chicago after his bootcamp there and he went to Jacksonville and they said okay you want to go on a ship or do you want to take pictures for the Navy and he goes I'll take the camera and so my dad was sent to Pensacola from Jacksonville and that's where the photo school was in the early 50s so my dad was a photo mate mate and he learned a processing film and all of that he ended up going to Anacostia from there which is where he would he would process film he had top-secret clearance at at the base because the film coming back from Korea was sent to Anacostia he would process that film and then take it over to the Pentagon for the leaders to you know analyze and determine battle plans based on some of the footage that was coming back from the front so he learned the film business in the Navy and then he went to went to Chicago when he got out of the Navy and he started his own film editing business I remember as a kid being five years old and my dad was cutting film and in those days today everything's done on computers but in those any film editors here know okay so in those days they had something called a movie Ola and you know they would cut film by you know putting the film together and taping it and then they'd tape all the film together and that's how they would edit film and my dad worked on these very very low-budget what they called slasher movie they were just buckets of blood everywhere and you know horrible horrible movies but he was learning the film business and that's that was his job and I remember being at his office at about five years old and he's cutting monster movies on this movie Ola and you put the film through the you have a little screen like that and the film runs through and you can see all the you can see the movie and then you get it to a certain place you stop the Machine you take it out you cut the film you tape it together and I remember I remember that that and that wasn't the way I got into the acting business by the way people asked me if that had anything to do with it no no I it didn't the acting came much much later high school right yeah yeah high school I I was actually and III document a lot of this in the book and is it's pretty interesting this for some reason I remembered a whole bunch of stuff from from life and I put it all in there I was I was a kid who struggled a lot I I don't think I my mom my dad was always working I remember and so my mom had her hands full with me my brother and sister and her mother and her sister she was kind of they lived with us in the basement and we had a very small little house and in those fundamental years of like first second third grade when you you learn how to read you learn how to write you learn all these fundamentals I just didn't learn them and my mom was so busy I don't ever remember my parents doing homework with me or anything like that so I struggled academically all the way through school just out of I think they would probably today they would diagnose me with some sort of learning disability but at that time I was just a guy who looked out the window a lot and and so when I got into high school you know and and my mom unfortunately or fortunately I don't know she saved all all my report cards [Laughter] yes so I can look back fondly and as to how how bad I was in school it was a straight D average from from kindergarten all the way through the end of high school until I got into acting and I sliced I really did struggle and I was a kid that was having a lot of trouble this was the late 60s and early 70s so there's some bad behavior going on then and it was it was a little difficult music was always something that kept me going I learned how to play guitar in 4th grade and so I played music all the way up into high school and that's pretty much all I wanted to do I didn't go to classes I would cut classes I was just about ready to get kicked out of school it was terrible and I was standing in this hallway as a sophomore in high school and I was I played in a rock band this is 1971 I played her and played in a rock band I'm standing there with a you know scrubby look at rock-and-roll band members and this little lady just came power and down the hallway and she she did a double-take and she turned to us and she said I'm the drama teacher I'm directing West Side Story it's about two gangs and you guys look perfect so coming audition you know and then she blew off down the hall and I looked at the guys and we all kind of laughed theater and who needs that you know but I thought after school I'd go by the audition and just take a look and I knew West Side Story you know the mutant the movie had come out and I was at another school when I was a freshman and they actually had done a production of West Side Story and I saw and I thought maybe it'd be kind of good to get up there and you know I don't know if you know it but they dance and they fight and they dance and they fight you know like a marriage and so I went to the audition and I I'm I didn't know what to do I didn't know about going in but I saw all the pretty girls going in there and so I just followed them in and I went in and I didn't know what to do I didn't know what an audition was I never done anything like that before and they handed me a script and said okay you read this part get up there and do it and I was like okay and then you know a lot of the kids that were auditioning were theater kids they'd been in plays before they'd auditioned before they were professionals you know I didn't know and they were blowing through the lines and reading the scene and everything and I'm like I can barely keep up because again I had a lot of trouble reading and it got to my part where I'm supposed to say like my one word in the scene and and there was a big pause because I'm still back on the other page trying to find where they are and the drama teacher said that Gary it's your line and I blurted out something and I got a big laugh and then I started just screwing around after I got a laugh and then I got more laughs and she put me in the show and you know what I mean we've all been in those we've all had those moments where you know if you if you were standing over here something else would have happened to you but you happen to be standing over there and you met somebody that changed the course of your life sent you in this direction as opposed to that direction well I happen to be standing in that hallway and she changed the entire course of my life all of a sudden I got in the play I went to the rehearsal I fell in love with it a kid who was really barely making in school all of a sudden had all these new friends in the drama department and they they liked me and they were having fun with me and I just fell in love with it well couldn't wait to get to rehearsal everyday and we did the play and I described it in the book and it's it's actually when I when I wrote it and then reread it I got very emotional about it because you know and people have asked me over the years what's the most important thing you've ever done what's the best thing you've ever done what's what's the most significant acting role or something like that and while I can point to a bunch of different things that were great I always go to that first thing that first moment where I discovered this thing that I ended up doing for my career and doing for my life and I can point to that as being among the top moments that I've had in my acting career and I only had a couple of little lines I was playing a little part I wasn't the lead or anything but I discovered it and then from that point on my junior and senior year that was my sophomore year I just wanted to be in plays all the time I took all the theater classes all of a sudden this D student was getting A's in a class I like aced all the theater classes because I found this thing that that I loved unfortunately because I was such a screw-up before that I had my class graduated in 1973 in June and they all went off to college and I had to go back to high school for another semester so in the book we say that I graduated the year the class of 1970 three and a half what blows me away and that story is the next thing that happens which is you graduated in 1973 and a half and you want to keep acting right you have a couple of friends who are in college six months ahead of you and the three of you start an ensemble that some folks may have heard of the Steppenwolf theater of Chicago one of the great theater achievements of the second half of the 20th century you and a couple of year no offense knucklehead friends obviously hugely talented when the Steppenwolf received the Presidential Medal of the Arts in 1998 Bill Clinton referred to this chance friendship as quote a moment when the cosmos got lucky tell us a little bit about how do the three guys start something of such enduring impact as the Steppenwolf theater it really came out of me I just as I said I fell in love with theater in high school and when I went back for that extra semester and I tell this story in the book yeah I felt really terrible showing up that first day of school when when my whole class had left and went you know went off to college and I felt kind of ashamed and and a bit of a failure even though I was even though I was kind of one of the top guys in the theater department yeah I was playing leaves and plays and did well I still felt very badly I tell a story in the book that the drama teacher knowing I was coming back for one other semester she picked a play that in the back of her mind although she couldn't say this out loud in the back of her mind she's thinking that I'm I should play this part and she picked a play do you know cyrano de bergerac that beautiful play about the guy with the pointy nose the the beautiful Roxanne who he's in love with but he feels terrible because he doesn't like the way he looks and then there's that the beautiful handsome guy who can't put two words together but Sir no the one with the deformities he's a poet and he can he can spin poetry too you know romance anybody and it's a beautiful story and she thought that I could play that role but when I went to audition for it I just felt so terrible about being back in high school that I just blew it and I I said I can't do this and I walked out she called me up that night and said well you were really terrible but I'm gonna call you back anyway for a callback you don't deserve it but I'm gonna call you back anyway because you can do this you better get off your butt and get in here and do it she chewed me out it was great it was great because she got me to like wow I'm feeling sorry for myself and you know just feeling down and feeling all this stuff and I don't need to feel like that and I got to be in high school anyway why not do the play so I went back the next day and an audition for it and and and we've killed it we just and so I got the part and it made that extra semester worth worth failing failing in school for because I got to play this beautiful role and I learned even more by doing that and so graduating in January of 1974 mid cementum mid-year I wasn't gonna go to college high school was high high school was hard enough to get through I just couldn't imagine going to college so I wanted to keep that feeling of doing plays so we found a church that my parents knew the architects of this church and I asked them if they would let us go in there and do a play in there and they said yes they gave us a key and they said just lock up when you leave and so after school every day I got a job in the day because the kids that were in the play were all it still in high school so I got a job during the day cuz I'm out of high school now and starting to make a little money and so I would meet the kids after school we'd go into the church and we'd rehearse our play and when we were doing that we were about ready to print the programs for the play and we decided we needed to have an identity let's call it something let's call our company something let's say we're a company and but such-and-such a company presents the play and so in there we were one of the guys happened to be reading this book by Hermann Hesse called Steppenwolf and he just held up the book and we said okay let's put that on the program and that's it that's it and that's how Steppenwolf got its name Steppenwolf now started by kids eighteen years old with just nothing but a desire to keep acting and a passionate commitment to it and a love of theater and everything like that Steppenwolf is now 45 years old we owned four different buildings we've been all over the world it's a multi-million dollar nonprofit and we're about to build another building so it's really a great picture it's a great it's a great American dream story you just you start out with absolutely nothing we didn't charge any money for tickets we put a shoe box in the lobby and I scroll donations on the side of it we would hope people would throw money in one time the second play that we did I had made about a thousand dollars working for my dad in his editing firm and I produced this to play the second play was Greece that musical reason and I thought and I spent my thousand dollars to you know then make the sets and the programs and you know whatever they buy some costume whatever it was I spent the thousand dollars on the on the play and I thought well I you know nobody the last play we did nobody threw any money in the shoe box so I'm I gotta get my money back somehow so so an intermission for Greece I walked out on stage at intermission and I was in the show I directed and produced it and was in the show and I walked out on stage and said you know we worked really hard on this show and and you know before we give you the second act I'm going to send the Oscars please please put some money in the box and so we held we held the second-act hostage until they made those donations so that's my first work in non-profit right there and ended up by the end of the run we ended up getting $1,500 so I paid paid the thousand dollars back and we produced another play with the extra 500 it's all in the book it's all in the book which by the way just made the New York Times bestseller list within I want to say maybe six years of that start as 18-year old kids you were reading a play by a guy called Sam Shepard his website I looked at it today he refers to you as at the time the then-unknown Gary Sinise you contacted Sam Shepard and put on a play called true West right Sam had me on his website he's got you on the website let me rephrase that he's got true west on his way now okay and you play an important part in that because that was the first play that Steppenwolf took to New York and there was another than unknown actor you directed and starred in it with do you remember John Malkovich yeah so John was John was a member so we had this little community theater kind of in 1974 and then we regrouped again in 1976 my buddy Jeff Perry who was actually in the production of West Side Story we became fast friends you'd know him from the TV show scandal if you've ever seen scandal anybody seen Jeff is the evil chief of staff and scandal and he's my best friend from from high school we started the theater company together he met another guy is college named Terry Kenny the three of us regrouped and in 1976 I went to the Chamber of Commerce in Highland Park and asked them if they knew of any spaces that were available in town that we could use because we were starting we wanted to build a theater and he took me to the basement of a Catholic school that had been closed down there was a basement in there and we built an 88 seat theater in there we brought in there so it was the three of us and then we brought in Malkovich Laurie Metcalf do you know Laurie Laurie was went to college with them Joan Allen was a member who joined about a year after that my soon-to-be wife at that time Moira Harris and there was about a nine of us in there in the basement and we really developed our style working in this basement in the northern suburb of Chicago Highland Park Illinois where Jeff and I went to high school and then we eventually moved into the city of Chicago and took over a theater called the Jane Addams Center and though and it was there that I became the artistic director of the company and one of the things the artistic director must do is find plays for the actors to be in so I started reading everything I could and started directing and I directed a one-act by Sam Sheppard called action and I just fell in love with Sam Sheppard so I bugged his agents to give me the rights at Steppenwolf nobody knew who we were at the time but I kept pecking this agent until she wanted to give the rights to the Goodman theater do you know the Goodman in Chicago very big theater been around for many many years she wanted them to do it they didn't want to do it she finally gave me the rights and I cast John and the older brother role I directed it in Chicago and then it was a big hit there and we were able to move it to New York in October of 1982 and it was a big big hit in New York and Malkovich all of a sudden he's on the cover of magazines and you know he's like the new Brando and all the stuff and it was it was an exciting time because the theater company was now now we were an internationally recognized theatre company John went off as soon as we finished the show we did it for six months I kept directing different casts in the show for the next 18 months so it ran almost two years but as soon as we were done we went into a television studio and we shot it for PBS for something called American Playhouse so you can find this on youtube if you look up Malkovich Tanish true West you can find this thing on YouTube it's on there we shot it for PBS John left the day after we finished shooting it and he went off and did his first movie which was a movie called The Killing Fields yeah shot in Thailand and his career just took off from then I went back to the theater took over as artistic director again because I had to take some time off to be in New York and the company just kept growing and growing and growing from that point between 1982 and 1919 90 we took six plays to New York all of them did well and in 1990 we broke ground to build our own building while we were doing an adaptation of The Grapes of Wrath on Broadway which won the Tony Award that year so it was a it was a productive so there's all that's before we start getting to know you as a movie star and one of those key moments early on has you as a director as well as a star and again co-starring with John Malkovich you just mentioned Grapes of Wrath you had a relationship right with John Steinbeck's Widow and you had a dream of making of mice and men that was your debut right as a film director no II would director there's a second second movie and you were nominated for the Palme d'Or icon for your second movie that's not too bad and by then bi could do this theater stuff forever but I don't want to run out of time and I know people are gonna want to hear you talk about a role that came along shortly after Of Mice and Men Bob Zemeckis was making a movie of a little novel by Winston groom called Forrest Gump tell us a few Forrest Gump well I was lucky to get to know Elaine Steinbeck when I was doing the grace Grapes of Wrath and I I wanted I we were on Broadway I knew we're coming to a close I wanted it I was going to go back to California where my wife and I had moved and I was going to start pounding the pavement again trying to find something to do you know audition for what whatever I could find and I was standing with Elaine just like this backstage and I said well you give me the rights to Of Mice and Men to try to make it into a movie and it had already been a movie three times before before she gave me the rights to do it but she gave me the rights I was then able to go back to California with the rights to something which makes you a producer you don't have to have done anything but if you have the right you're you're a producer so I went to I went and was able to set it up with him MGM they gave me the budget I asked John to do it because John and I have done this we had done the play in 1980 on stage so this is 1991 I asked John hey you want to do this I'm gonna make a movie of it he said yeah we made the movie we went to Kahn did really well there and I think the producers of Forrest Gump and the director of Forrest Gump saw the movie and I produced it I directed it and I was in it and that got their attention a little bit I think and they asked me to come in audition for Lieutenant Dan and just to backtrack a little bit I have Vietnam veterans in my family on my wife's side of the family in the late 70s and early 80s I really got to know them well one was a combat medic in Vietnam the other was a combat assault helicopter pilot in Vietnam 800 combat hours the other was a West Point graduate went to Vietnam as a platoon leader or lieutenant then went back again as a company commander captain he taught at West Point as a major he was teaching here at Fort Leavenworth in 1983 when he as a lieutenant colonel when he he was diagnosed with cancer and he passed away but I I got to know these Vietnam veterans very well in my family and they really opened my eyes to a lot of things so I started supporting Vietnam veterans in various ways back in the 80s and there's some very important things in the book about that and how important the Vietnam veterans that I had gotten to know in my in my family and through the support work in Chicago in the 80s how great a role that plays in what I'm doing today but then along came the 90s and I get this script to play a Vietnam veteran a wounded Vietnam veteran and Forrest Gump and I just I wanted to do it so badly because of the experiences through the 80s with the Vietnam veterans and my family and and those I had befriended in Chicago so I was ready for that audition I went in Bob Zemeckis was there he's the director of Forrest Gump and many other great movies the producers were there the writer was there and I did some of the scenes sitting in a chair you know behind a conference table pretending I was in a wheelchair and I think I did really well but I didn't hear anything for a while I kept calling my agent so I said what's happening you know I'm laying pins and needles here I want to get this part so bad and they were like well they're you know they liked you they thought you were really good but you know they're thinking about it and they're talking in another video you know maybe they're gonna cast Bruce Willis and nobody knew who Gary Sinise was at that point and you know so I had to I had to try to figure out how to get my mind off it and my agents started sending me on other auditions and I so I went on I went on a bunch of auditions and I got really close to two movies that were going to be made one was called Little Buddha anybody see Little Buddha and another one was a new movie that Costner was doing of Wyatt Earp big long movie and I got this close to both of those movies and if I would have got one of them I probably would have taken it and then then I auditioned for a movie called tall tale it was a Disney movie with Patrick Swayze and my wife and I both auditioned for it and they cast both of us in the movie and then so I'm like okay well I guess I'm gonna do it tall tale you know the other ones I didn't get thankfully because Wyatt Earp didn't do well at all nobody saw a little Buddha I mean I may have taken those roles you know but then I get this call and it's my agent says it looks like you might get Forrest Gump and and so I got the part luckily I didn't take those other films because I may have that may have put me out of the running for lieutenant Dan oh holy crap well in life would have been a lot different after here's a question when the first time you saw that movie did you have any idea how big it was gonna be the first time I saw it yep like finished at any point at what point did you say this is special and it's gonna be what I think it's gonna be huge they showed us the movie in a right before the movie came out they and they had all the cast members Michael T Williamson and played baa baa myself Sally Field Robin Wright Tom they had all of us and the producers the writer direct they had all of us come to Paramount to see the movie in a tiny screening room there and I can remember I can remember the look on everyone's face when the movie was over and the lights came up and everybody stood up and looked at each other everyone had this this massive smile on their face because we all knew that that it was really a good movie so everybody came out of that screening feeling feeling that we were and we had something special you know but you don't know until it opens you know but within days after it opened it was it was the biggest movie of the year and the theaters were selling out all over the place and I remember going I tell a story in the book I went to Big Bear which is a couple hours away from Los Angeles it's like a little resort and thus that summer we took the kids up there we were playing in the pool up there and just hanging out and all of a sudden one of these little kids pointed at me and said lieutenant and then then there's pool full of children swarmed onto me and I was Jenna dan and all these kids were telling me and then they wanted my autograph and they'd seen the movie these ten 12 year old kids had seen the movie three times already and I thought well I think I think it's gonna be a hit these little kids have seen it three times I think we're in good shape and sure enough I mean it went on to win six Oscars it was nominated for like 13 Oscars something I got an Oscar nomination and it was an exciting time everything changed at that point the career went in a totally different direction literally because your next picture or soon after was Apollo 13 [Music] you just fascinated me in the book you picked you had some some influence over which astronaut you played if I read that correctly and you were excited to play the one who didn't go well yeah Tom was gonna play the part of Jim Lovell and so I think you know he meant you know I remember going in to audition for that and Ron Howard told my agents tell Gary to just come in and read for whichever one he wants other than Tom it's part Jim Lovell just you know whichever one he wants to read for just to have him to do it so I read it and I I just liked the part of the guy who gets taken off the mission did basically everyone see Apollo 13 or most it's such a great American story they call it a successful failure and when I read it I thought this is just this is such a good idea for a movie and it was really well-written and it was exciting and I just liked the the story of the guy who's really top-notch guy quality guy knows what he's doing ken Mattingly but he gets taken off the mission because he was at a party and he was exposed to the measles some other astronauts child had the measles and he and he hadn't had the measles when he was a kid so they pulled him off the mission because they couldn't take the chance that maybe he had been exposed and he would contract the measles while he's flying around the moon so he gets pulled off the mission but then he comes back he's needed in the end to get them down to figure out how to get them down so I like the story of the guy who's they like falls from grace but then ends up being one of the main you know main ingredients that saves the day at the end I just like that storyline so I went in read once I think Tom put in a couple of good words for me after doing Forrest Gump but Ron cast me in the movie and then I remember the big giant paramount premiere of Forrest Gump and Ron came to that and he saw the movie for the first time and then afterwards he goes I'm glad I cast you [Laughter] I said I am doing well speaking of characters who unexpectedly find themselves coming through one of our favorite roles here in Kansas City is Harry Truman you've played him in HBO's miniseries which I think was highest their their highest rated miniseries of the year when that came out you spent some time here in Kansas City and out at the library I think researching that role I wonder if you'd talk for a second about what you came to you obviously had to get to know Harry Truman very well to play that part what what key character character traits qualities did you you find in him to anchor the part around I remember I didn't know much you know I knew very basic things about Harry Truman before they offered me the role so I was confused as to why they would be offering me the role but then I read the David McCullough biography which it's just magnificent it's you know he wrote that book in such a way that it's not like a technical historical look at a guy who becomes president but you get emotionally involved in the story of his journey this sort of reluctant person who gets swept along by history in a way into the most some of the most significant moments in American history and I liked that and we had to do Harry Truman 35 years of Harry Truman's life in two hours it was it was it was it was one it was it was a two hour movie so that was a challenge because you hear we're doing this twelve hundred page book in two hours and and so some of it felt a little you know like we were just getting into this moment and then we got to move on to the next thing and the next thing and the next thing so I ended trying to find this the essence of the person and the journey so I spent a lot of time reading I came here to the Truman library and spent time in the library researching and they let me go down the archives and look at documentation and film footage and things in fact I remember I found this this speech that he made at the Democratic convention and he was dressed in this white suit and it was very dashing like white suit and he made a heck of a speech but it wasn't in the movie and so I called I called the director and I said we got to put this in the movie I mean this is tremendous and and so we went back looked at everything the screenwriter got into it put it in there and we and we haven't in the movie it's one of the first things I shot I remember was that that particular speech we also had to figure out how I was gonna look like Harry Truman because he ages from about 30 years old to about 68 years old in the movie and it kind of starts with his you know beginning as a relationship with Bess and then he then he volunteers to go to war and he goes of World War one and was a captain there and and and then he gets swept along with his you know selling suits and all that and and then but but he ages throughout the thing throughout the movie so we had to figure out how I was gonna do this aging thing and and so we got this makeup artist from Canada to design this full it was like from here to here and here I mean it was like a full face made out of this silicone gel and they it took them four and a half hours to put this stuff on me to put the wigs on I shaved my head they put the wigs on put the face on and then I had to act underneath that face for another I don't know 12 hours so my days were 16 hour days for for 35 days and it was a long it was a long process it was a difficult process but ultimately I'm proud of the movie very proud of the movie it had won some awards and yeah I want some awards for that and it just it it was part of this period in the 90s where things were just shifting in my career and I was starting to get more serious acting roles in the movie and television business and that was certainly a great one to play I loved I loved playing Harry Truman the book really took me back to the on a personal level the shock of September 11th 2001 you're very open about how personal your reaction was to that and it reminded me of how personal it was for all Americans at time when everybody we all had a flag on our house and but for you that was not a passing moment that was another career change if I understand it rightly it sort of coincided with your long run on CSI as Mac Taylor but you created an emphasis that has become more and more and more significant part of your life and I want to give you a chance before we go to questions from the audience to talk about how you got from there to today where the Gary Sinise foundation is a 30 million dollar a year operation serving our wounded veterans our gold star families people all around the world so well yeah I there's there's a lot in the book but there's a chapter in the book called turning point and it's named that because it was truly kind of this this moment where I turned from this singular focus on my acting my theater company my movie and television work to a service a broader service mission and having had this education from the Vietnam veterans and my family going back to the 70s and 80s that getting involved after scepter playing lieutenant dan with a disabled american veterans organization the DAV and volunteering to support the DAV which advocates for upwards of two million wounded veterans they and they actually invited me to their national convention right after Forrest Gump came out to present me with an award and I for playing a wounded service member that was a very moving moment I never forgot that so I you know over over the next few years I would support them in various ways and try to help the DAV and then that morning where our nation was attacked everything changed you know change for our country it changed for many individuals that I've met over the years in various ways certainly personally affected the families that lost loved ones on that day he had personally affected the men and women who were deploying in reaction to that day to Afghanistan and then to Iraq a few years later and I just you know I just felt this this this terrible anguish and Anna and a need to to do something to help so I and I remember do you remember probably we probably all can remember the Friday after the Tuesday President Bush he announced that he was going to make the Friday after the Tuesday a National Day of Prayer for the nation and the churches houses of worship all over the country were just were jam-packed with people with broken hearts for our country and for the families and with fear as to what was going to happen next to our country we were all searching for some sort of peace and support something and I remember going to our little Catholic Church and it was jam-packed by the time we got there or not I stood on the side and I just something happened something began to happen where I heard this this message about the healing power of service to others and how we could come together as a nation by helping one another during that difficult time and that resonated with me come totally and it's a it's a it's an important part of the book because from that moment on I turned toward service work and I knew having veterans in my family having been involved with wounded veterans having Vietnam veterans in my life who came home from war to a nation that had been divided by that war and it actually turned its back on these veterans I knew that I just felt that one of the places for me to employ my services were to those who were reacting to that event on that terrible day raising their hands signing up going to Afghanistan going to Iraq so I started to raise my hand to the USO into various military charities around the country who somebody like me showing up in an event can draw attention to them which would raise a little more money for them which help them help more people in the military space and the veterans space and I also befriended many 9/11 family members of the FDNY in New York City who had lost loved ones and I started supporting them in various ways raising money for them by doing concerts I started a band and started going around the country and overseas playing music and I would just do anything I could I would just raise my hand wherever I could one of the things that we did we started a school supply program where we would ship school supplies over to the troops in Iraq and we did this because I went to a school when I was over there in 2003 and I saw I saw the interaction of the children with our soldiers and the kids were just embracing the soldiers you you weren't hearing any of anything about this public affairs work that our soldiers were doing over there because things were getting worse in Iraq the insurgency was building up we were hearing about things that weren't going right but we weren't hearing about what so many of our soldiers were doing to help people there and I saw it for my own eyes going into these schools and seeing the children who had been helped by our soldiers and I wanted to try to to do something so we started a program called Operation Iraqi children which eventually became Operation International children and we started shipping hundreds of thousands of school supply kits over to the Troops and they would roll into a village that might be hostile to the American soldiers and they would start unloading school supplies and handing them out to the kids and the whole mood in the village would completely change and we we did that under the umbrella of people-to-people international meri Eisenhower's here when my dear friend Mary is here she was running people-to-people international at the time started by her grandfather Dwight the Eisenhower and they embraced our program brought Operation Iraqi children under people to people as a program of people-to-people so now that week now we had a 501 C 3 that we could raise money for through to help buy school supplies and put them together and we shipped for the for the nine years that this program existed we shipped hundreds of thousands of school supplies to the troops in Iraq Afghanistan Djibouti the Philippines we shipped them down to Haiti and this was just one aspect of trying to get involved to help our troops responding to those terrible attacks so much of that work eventually manifested itself into the creation of my own military support nonprofit the Gary Sinise foundation I think we're gonna have microphones in each of these aisles the first couple of three people at each one we can take questions again not speeches and not pitches for very talented granddaughters or grandson looking to break into the business but the Gary Sinise foundation you can find it on the Internet Gary Sinise foundation.org you can give money to it and I recommend that you do you can order them you can order the book there if you didn't buy it from rainy-day books here or buy a second copy or a third or a fourth buy the store out they make great fourth of July gifts just a few other things you'll see if you go to the foundation website 70 houses built for severely wounded veterans so far right smart homes that they can live in [Applause] and I'm building more I think the numbers are astounding you can see them for yourselves we'll start over here right here at a time when we see so much division in our country I'm wondering what the challenge is like for you as an actor in Hollywood being a member of the GOP when so much of Hollywood is not [Applause] I don't I don't you know I don't pay attention to a lot of that really my primary focus is helping the country's defenders mr. Sinise thank you for coming you play Truman and it seems like it's been 75 years since the Marshall Plan and we've been the policemen of the world for 75 years and you've had the privilege to go to the military bases overseas which so few of us Americans can actually go to and that's wondering if maybe it's time that we turned the job over to somebody else in the world on being a policeman of the world because so many of our veterans that are retired and they're having 30 40 50 70 % disabilities and that's an unknown fact so thank you again thank you was that a question do you know what there's nothing I'm gonna be able to do that's gonna change the the politics or the decisions by our leaders too you know with with regards to where the military should be or where they should go and I know that I recognize I can jump up and down all I want but I'm not gonna make a difference there what I can make a difference that is exactly what I said here and that is like every American citizen I feel that I I can take some responsibility myself and we can all do it in different ways for patting them on the back making sure they know that they're appreciated and if there are needs out there that we see we can we can try to address those needs we we all benefit from the freedom that's provided by these defenders so why not take some responsibility sir it was an honor there were many times tonight where I think we could have heard a pin drop because we are listening to every word that you're saying so with a captive audience and an opportunity to send us out with a charge what is the best advice you could give us to help make this world a better place you know that that's that's that's a great question I'm not gonna solve that problem for anybody but I can just say what makes me feel better you know we all we all feel better when we bring a smile to somebody's face whose doesn't have a smile right I mean no matter who it is or no matter what we do there and you can do that in various ways with regards to our our freedom providers really if every if everyone in every neighborhood and community and state city state in this country took a little bit of responsibility to ensure that our defenders were taken care of or had the services they need the military families that are struggling in those communities that that they knew that that that we were there for them you know their military families all across this country who may be going through difficult times they may have lost a loved one you know in military service and and they can't pay their rent they can't fix their refrigerator they can't they can't go to the grocery store or whatever there are little things that we can all do that would make us feel better about helping somebody else and and and service to others I can I know that there are many people in this audience who know what I'm talking about when when you say you know when I say service to others has a great healing power you know and that that makes us feel better it makes makes the world a better place when we're all looking out for each other and trying and trying to trying to do something positive for each other there's enough negative stuff going on all the time you can watch the news and be depressed all day long you know but but there are other things you can do to feel a lot better and I intend to I named this grateful American because that's what I am I'm grateful I'm grateful a lot of things I know that something that you've instilled at home as well it's not just you and your wife Moira who are involved in the foundation I think your kids are as well my son works yeah yeah my son my son works for the foundation my son-in-law works for the foundation and their young folks whose lives have changed because they are in they are working for an organization that's just about making people feel better that's it that's it I mean you know a non-profit like ours you know and as so many nonprofits they're there to just help somebody feel better and get through the day a little easier and that's what we do at the Gary Sinise foundation focusing on our military defenders our first responders their families our wounded our gold star family so many children in this country have lost a loved one a parent in this military conflict there's so many there's thousands we took over a thousand kids down to Disney World right and and right before Christmas and I've been involved with that for about 12 or 13 years it's a wonderful program at the Gary Sinise foundation where we just try to put our hands or our hands on these children who are all going through a terrible grief because mom or dad was lost in military service and they may come from little towns all over the country and they may be the only military family in that town and they don't have dad there anymore and this little little boy or little girl is the only one and his his or her class that's going through that and when we bring them together with a thousand other kids that are going through the same thing it's powerful it's healing and that's one of the things we do at the Gary Sinise foundation try to make these make sure these children know that we aren't going to forget the sacrifices their families have made for us [Applause] one that one one more on each side will start here we'll go there and then we'll wrap them why don't we switch will go here and we'll come back to you thank you for coming mr. Sinise on behalf of everybody here thank you and for all the services that you have done for the veterans is your foundation currently involved with the timing homes for veterans the homeless veterans with the what the tiny homes tiny home yeah for the homeless veterans I'm I'm not involved in tiny homes the veterans community we have contractors that are building tiny homes for the veterans of Kansas City Boston I was just wondering if your foundation is actually helping any of your homeless veterans well I'll tell you what we do in in 2009 I was at one of my trips at Walter Reed and I met the first soldier to survive a quadruple amputation so he had been blown up in Iraq and he lost both his arms and both his legs and he was from Staten Island and having been involved with the FDNY in Staten lie in New York and supported them and various projects there raised money for to build memorials and things like that there and they knew that I had a band and I raised money with the band by donating a band and so they asked me they came to me some of the FDNY folks and said they wanted to build a house for this quadruple amputee named Brendan Morocco and they wanted to build him a special house that would have some technology in it that would allow him to be more independent within his home so I donated my band we did a concert and we raised money to build Brendan a special house in Staten Island and while we were getting ready to to build this house I get a call from my friends at Walter Reed saying another marine has come in with the same injury both arms in both legs so I said to the guys I was working with I'll do another concert let's let's raise some more money let's build another house for him well unfortunately and I did do a concert in st. Louis and then unfortunately we had another marine come in both arms of both legs then we had another and then we had another five quadruple amputees so I raised my hand and said let's do concerts let's raise money let's build these houses and that's how I got into what we do at the Gary Sinise foundation when I started the foundation I wanted to make home building for our severely wounded service members part of the foundation so we created what we call The Rise Program restoring independence supporting empowerment and we try to restore their independence because so much of their independence have been taken away because they have these limitations now due to their physical challenges so we provide smart technology in the houses if you need an elevator because you're in a wheelchair and we can't build out because the size of the lot won't allow us to so we need to go up there for somebody in a wheelchair needs to have a an elevator to get them upstairs we do all kinds of things at the Gary Sinise foundation - Bravo provide these specially adapted smart technology homes that are specifically designed for the challenges that each one of these wounded service members face and each one of them face a different challenge so there's not a cookie cutters sort of house that we build and we also recognize that this could be the forever home for this particular person because it's so beautifully designed for them and their family and we want them to feel empowered within their home they have enough challenges getting in the car and driving to just go to the store or go to the movies or go someplace that's not specifically designed for their needs so we take that stress off them we provide a mortgage free house for them they've given a lot for the country it's not really that much to give them back a little place to live they must one more here mr. Sinise my name is Stacy Myers and I'm a widow of a soldier and I want to thank you for everything that you do for myself my children as being gold star families - taps and your Christmas this past Christmas [Applause] just I wanted to give a big thank you to mr. Sinise he talked tonight about the bravery of so many other people and the work that he did hello Mary my cousin how are you dear he talked about the bravery of our American men and women in uniform and I doubt very much if anyone in this room knows the bravery that this man exhibited in 2003 when I was stationed in northern Iraq and it wasn't a pretty place and it wasn't a kind place many entertainers agreed to go to Kirkuk Iraq one of the rules when flying into a warzone is that the entertainer has the opportunity of telling the aircraft commander I don't think so we're going to turn around there were two entertainers in 2003 that came to Kirkuk Iraq one of them was Robin Williams the other one was mr. Gary Sinise [Applause] the difference that the DIF that mr. Sinise made to those men and women at Kirkuk air airbase which which were really suffering greatly for a moment for for the hour - that he was there their minds were taken away from that and it had a huge impact on everybody and one final thing I'm so glad that you got them to write the Democratic National Convention speech into that script because I was the guy that he introduced you in the movie he's an actor on the side well I can't top any of that want to thank the Truman library Institute for convening this event we hope you'll come out and visit the library see what's going on there and the plans that we have for the future I hope you'll visit Gary Sinise foundation org with your credit card number handy and I want to thank mr. Sinise again with all the accolades that he's won for his work in the theater and film on television since 2000 he has won virtually every award an American citizen can receive particularly in the area of civilian support of our armed forces from the George Catlett Marshall award to the Sylvan astaire award from West Point to the presidential citizens medal the second highest honor an American can receive and I wouldn't be surprised if one day we'll see you getting that highest medal as well Gary Sinise the greatest role is yourself thank you very much thank you thank you you

Channel: Truman Library Institute

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Id: 66P6BpxNjbA

Length: 85min 25sec (5125 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 26 2019