Strike up the band! It’s that time of year when we honor those in the military who’ve made the ultimate sacrifice for our way of life.

And Memorial Day is once again honored by PBS with its “National Memorial Day Concert” presented live from the lawn of the Capitol on Sunday, May 24.

Actors Gary Sinise and Joe Mantegna will, once again, co-host the event.

Both patriots, Mantegna is best known as the canny profiler on “Criminal Minds: Evolution” streaming now on Paramount+. And while he never served in the armed forces himself, many in his family did, including an uncle, his uncle’s three brothers, his father-in-law and his grandfather.

Sinise is best known for his portrayal as the bitter double amputee, Lt. Dan, from “Forrest Gump.” Though he’d been acting since high school, it wasn’t until he portrayed the enraged Vietnam vet that people really began to herald Sinise. “I've had more anger in my life, maybe, than sorrow,” he says.

“I've been kind of a lucky guy in my life — I haven't had any major, major tragedies in my life. And there have been times when I've been mad as hell. But I've been lucky, I haven't had any major, major tragedies in my life, or sorrow,” he says.

A cartload of stars will shine on this year’s 90-minute special including Noah Wyle, Melissa Leo, Andy Grammer, Jonathan Banks, Mickey Guyton, Alan Jackson and Mary McCormack. Many of them share meager beginnings but overcame them in a nation that encouraged resourcefulness.

Today Wyle can be seen orchestrating the hectic emergency room in “The Pitt” via HBO Max, and he also co-starred in the original “ER” and “The Librarian” franchise.

He says he received some sound advice from George Clooney when he was first starting out as an actor.

“He once said to me — and I'm sure somebody had said it to him — ‘Take your work seriously but don’t take yourself too seriously.’ And for some reason that simple sentence just stayed in the back of my mind, that and a very realistic outlook on how transitory this all is,” says Wyle.

“The spotlight is always moving, and it hits you and you're in it for a little while, and it inevitably moves on, and you have to be able to weather the peaks and valleys of a career if you're going to stay in it for the long haul. The best way to do that is to not really believe the good reviews or the bad reviews and try and find a quality of life for yourself that allows you to navigate what can be very rough seas.”

Actress Mary McCormack is best known for her role as the daunting U.S. marshal in the USA network series “In Plain Sight,” and as the competent Dr. Conley on “The Pitt.”

“I borrowed every dime of my college education. My parents didn’t have it. And when I said I wanted to be an actor they said, ‘Of course, do whatever makes you happy.’ Now, as an adult who pays her own mortgage and has her own children, I think, ‘My God, for them to say that! I bet they went into their room, shut the door and passed out.’ It was courageous and nice and kind of them to say it.”

She says she conceived the idea of performing when she was a kid undergoing her First Communion. “There was little singing solo, and this boy had it and couldn’t do it. And they picked me to do it. And I remember I could hear it when he was doing it wrong. But it was so easy for me to do it, and I sang it, and I thought, ‘This is the life!’ It was only one line, but I remember thinking, ‘Yes, this is a little bit more attention.’ I definitely ate it up. And from then on, singing and theater — I think my First Communion gave me my performing bug.”

Melissa Leo, Academy Award winner for “The Fighter,” remembers, “I had a great blessing in that I grew up in a family with very little means. So when, as a young actor I got hungry, it was not unfamiliar. That willingness to do without, that willingness (to know) it wasn’t about having whatever I wanted to eat in a day, it was what I needed to eat in a day. That’s how I was brought up. That is absolutely what gets me here today.”

Jonathan Banks, famous for his role as the surreptitious enforcer in “Breaking Bad,” says he was trouble when he was a kid in northeast Washington, D.C., but that didn’t define him.

"I was a real fighter. Trouble. My mom worked all the time, and then she'd go to school at night ... But she got her master's degree when I got out of high school.

“She was trying to do better, you know. But the reality was that she wasn't around as much as she would have liked to have been, or certainly as much as I would have liked. I was just an angry kid. I was in trouble with the police a few times, but I was never sent away. I was lucky. The whole ride has been very lucky."

Woodard co-stars in 'The Boroughs'

Retirees are enjoying their “golden years” in the series, “The Boroughs,” premiering on Netflix Thursday. The production stars a roster of wonderful actors including Geena Davis, Alfred Molina, Alfre Woodard and Bill Pullman.

Woodard, who’s been in a spin-the-dial list of popular projects like “Luke Cage,” "Desperate Housewives" and “Star Trek: First Contact,” tells me when she first came to Los Angeles, she realized she was in way over her head.“ I was woefully ignorant of how the business worked, so I was clueless,” she says.

“I knew what I wanted, and I just came to try and do it. If I had an idea of what all was entailed and who all was here making it impossible to do those things I wanted to do, I might have considered another line of work.

“But my mother said to me that I told her when I was 4 1/2 that when I was a grown woman I was going to live in L.A. and she said, `Why?' I said, ’The sun comes out every day, and you can go to Disneyland whenever you want.' I had this idea that I would live in L.A. I never thought about being an actress until I was 16.”

Atwell revisits 'Howards End'

Hayley Atwell (“Mission: Impossible”) takes a stab at Margaret in Kenneth Longergan’s new version of E.M. Forster’s “Howards End.” Of course this tale of Edwardian class distinctions has been done before as a movie by Merchant Ivory. It starred Emma Thompson as the prudent Margaret.

The TV series premieres on BritBox Wednesday, May 20, but has already run on PBS’ “Masterpiece” nine years ago. It’s worth watching as Atwell and Philippa Coulthard (as Margaret’s younger sister) successfully navigate the waters between the upper-crusty England and the lower-class minions.

Atwell remembers attending the theater with her mom when she was a little girl. “There’d be something that would happen when the lights go down — a roomful of strangers, all watching the same story and had a cathartic experience or were moved in some way to tears or laughter — something completely unreal happening and being in suspended reality. For that moment, this was our reality.

“And I always come out feeling slightly changed, like I’ve experienced something magic. I thought, ‘They’re magicians, whatever they do. And I want in. I don’t know how. I don’t know if I have any talent. I'm terrified at the idea of public speaking, but I want that because I think that’s really cool and it’s very magical.’

“I loved the escapism, telling stories. But I also loved the ability the stories have to help us process very difficult human things. Through storytelling it can be a soft landing-pad to facing up to certain things which, in other words, we wouldn’t necessarily have the vocabulary for.

“If we can see it played out in other people’s lives, we feel less alone. So there was something about the connection between an audience member and the storyteller that I thought that was a worthy thing to dedicate your life to.”

Singers wanted for daily broadcast

Forget “American Idol” and “The Voice,” if you can sing, you may be chosen to open the broadcast day of Great American Family through its “America Sings the Anthem” event. The catch, of course, is you have to sing the “Star-Spangled Banner,” a difficult song to master, and the deadline arrives Monday, May 25.

The competition is conjured to celebrate America’s 250th birthday and is open to individuals and groups of all ages — churches, schools, choirs, families, community groups. You can record anywhere, but the performance is limited to 90 minutes. To take part in this excursion you must fill out the form, upload your video, either .mp4 or .mov, to pureflix.com/anthem. Good luck in hitting that high C and may the force be with you.

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