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VIDEO: Actors Gary Sinise and Joe Mantegna on Hosting the Annual National Memorial Day Concert
PBS/Courtesy Capital Concerts
Award-winning actors Gary Sinise and Joe Mantegna have cohosted the National Memorial Day Concert on PBS together for decades, but this year is extra special, as it arrives a few weeks before the 250th anniversary of America’s independence.
“It’s a big anniversary. Many sacrifices over the years have been made to keep us safe and free,” says Sinise, 71, who established the Gary Sinise Foundation nonprofit in 2011 to support service members, veterans and first responders and their family members.
Mantegna, 78, added that this year also marks the 85th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, and the 25th anniversary of the September 11 attacks. “Obviously, these are two anniversaries that are important to our history,” he says. “Instances which we wish had never happened but have happened, and we ultimately had to come to terms with and deal with. At the end of the day, here we are — the country is still surviving and carrying on. It reemphasizes that statement: ‘Freedom ain’t free.’”
The National Memorial Day Concert, on the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., is free to the public and takes place at 8 p.m. ET on May 24, the Sunday evening before Memorial Day. It will be broadcast live on PBS. The performance will include live music, celebrity tributes, military displays and storytelling, all hosted by Sinise and Mantegna, both of whom are well-known for their support of veterans.
(From left) Actors Gary Sinise and Joe Mantegna have cohosted the National Memorial Day Concert for decades. Memorial Day is “the holiday that allows us to have all the other holidays,” Mantegna says.
PBS/Courtesy Capital Concerts
In a recent interview with AARP, Sinise joined via video call from Nashville, Tennessee, and Mantegna from Los Angeles, to talk about the upcoming event, their favorite memories after two decades of being part of it, why the concert is important to each of them, and why neither of their future plans include the word ‘retirement.’
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
After more than two decades of participating in the concert, what do you look forward to most?
Mantegna: When they play the songs for each branch of the service. Gary and I will both be looking out at that crowd, sometimes well over a quarter of a million people. They’ll start the song for the Navy, and you’ll see different Navy veterans getting up out of their wheelchairs, and active men and women standing up. The Army, the Air Force, the Marines, the Coast Guard, as they each hear their songs, you see it on their faces — sometimes people that look like they can barely stand or are being helped to stand, and they’ve got that look of pride. That always gets me, every year.
Sinise: I remember how Joe and I would look at our own family members in the audience. I have a picture of Joe’s Uncle Willie [Novelli, a WWII veteran who died in 2014] standing up, and my Uncle Jack [Sinise, a WWII veteran who died in 2014] standing up, and my brother-in-law Jack [Treese, a Vietnam veteran who died in 2014], and how proud we felt. That’s a wonderful part of the show for me.
(From left) Actors Melissa Leo, Mary McCormack and Noah Wyle are among the many performers scheduled to appear during this year's National Memorial Day Concert.
Courtesy Capital Concerts: PBS; Catie Laffoon; Jeff Lipsky
What do you want people to think about this year when watching the show?
Mantegna: I hope it will have the same impact on them as it did on me when I hosted the concert for the first time, in 2002. I had a lot of family in the military, but they all came back, and so Memorial Day didn’t have quite the same significance as for people who’d lost people. I experienced my first concert when I went there as a favor to my dear friend, actor Charles Durning, a Silver Star recipient, and it had such an impact on me. It changed my life, in a way. Memorial Day went from being “that holiday in May” to the most important holiday this country celebrates every year, because it’s the holiday that allows us to have all the other holidays.
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