Mariska Hargitay on Making ‘My Mom Jayne’ and the “Miracle” of Getting to Reveal a Family Secret on Her Own Terms

Mariska Hargitay on Making ‘My Mom Jayne’ and the “Miracle” of Getting to Reveal a Family Secret on Her Own Terms

After Mariska Hargitay produced the 2017 HBO documentary I Am Evidence, people started asking her if she would make another film — and if she’d ever consider making one about her mother, actress Jayne Mansfield. She wasn’t interested at the time, she says, but when COVID shut down much of everyday life in 2020, including Hargitay’s long-time day job on Law & Order: SVU, she started reconsidering the story of her mom, who died in a car accident in 1967 when Hargitay was 3 years old (she and her brothers were in the back seat; all three survived the crash).

“It was really during COVID that I had all this time to process things that I had never processed before, and I started reading these letters from people who knew her,” Hargitay tells The Hollywood Reporter. “I was so moved by the generosity and thoughtfulness that people would send me what felt like these precious little pieces of her. This one woman said she used to drive to [Mansfield’s] house and sit in the driveway and listen to her play the violin, which piqued my interest but also made me think about, ‘Who was this person behind what we saw on this iconic level?’ I started really wanting to know who she was.”

Hargitay’s documentary about Mansfield — and herself — is called My Mom Jayne. It premieres Friday on HBO and Max and offers up both a nuanced portrait of Mansfield — who was celebrated and very much typecast as a sex symbol in the 1950s and early ‘60s while struggling to break free from that image — and a deeply personal examination of Hargitay’s own identity.

In the film, Hargitay reveals that Mickey Hargitay, Mansfield’s bodybuilder-and-actor second husband and who raised Mariska and her siblings after Mansfield’s death, was not her biological dad — and that she had kept that knowledge to herself for most of her adult life. Singer and entertainer Nelson Sardelli, who had a brief affair with Mansfield in the early 1960s and is also in the film, is Hargitay’s biological father. She also talks extensively with her siblings — brothers Mickey Hargitay Jr. and Zoltan Hargitay and sister Jayne Marie Mansfield — about memories of their mother, and uses plentiful archival footage to present the mother she never really knew.

Hargitay talked with THR about the “miracle” of keeping her biological father’s identity a secret until now, how this project has affected her relationships with her siblings — in both branches of her family — and how she has reclaimed her identity in full.

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When you started thinking about this, was it always in your mind to make a film, or were you just looking to examine your mother’s life for your own purposes?

I’d always had a very complex relationship with her and the image choices she made. And then my love of documentaries has been increasing. I experience them in such a visceral way, and it’s always been a way to [understand] a subject. It’s my hobby and what I love to spend my time doing. The moment that I decided was during COVID. I had, obviously, been carrying the story with me for a long time. When I started thinking about how I don’t want to carry this anymore, I thought, “Should I write a book? Do I do a segment on Oprah? What do I do?” At the time, I was thinking this needed somebody who’s skilled and masterful at affairs of the heart, because this was such a delicate story. And then I thought, “Well, I don’t think that’s long enough or comprehensive enough.” And the story became multi-layered, so I thought, “How do I tell my story?” I don’t know that I’m a skilled enough writer [to write a book]. Documentary is just my medium. It’s a medium that speaks to me, and I love filmmaking. This is what I need to do.

Can I tell you a funny story real quick?

Please do.

I can’t remember how many years ago it was, but I’m friends with [Alexander Hamilton and Ulysses S. Grant biographer] Ron Chernow. I met him because I’m very much a Hamilton-phile. I was so excited to meet him. We were introduced at a party, and we just sat and talked and talked. Then he said, “Have you ever thought about making a documentary about your mother?” I said “No, I think that everyone is dead now, I don’t think I’d have anybody to talk to.” He looks at me and goes, “I can help you with that.” [Laughs]

It was just this great moment. Here’s the guy who wrote Grant. It was just such a mind-blowing, very funny moment. But he loves film as well, and he said, “I think it’s something you should take seriously.” So I had these moments that had been percolating. It was many things all lining up to the perfect moment. And COVID was a moment that I had the time and space to think and to read all these letters. This film really got made because of the gifts that these people [sent], these letters that I had in a box for 30 years.

Prior to making the film, had you had many conversations with your siblings about their memories of Jayne, or was it something you kept at arm’s length?

It was something I kept at arm’s length. We had conversations here and there, but they didn’t remember. When I asked them, two of my siblings knew about my biological father, and two of them didn’t. That was a very interesting thing, too. I sort of couldn’t believe that this truth, this bombshell for me, had been out in the world, and that it didn’t ever come to light. I looked at that like as a kind miracle to me, but also a sign that it was my story to tell.

Were your siblings at all hesitant when you approached them with this idea?

They all were, and it was so beautiful to watch that turn, because they were all like “What?” [at first]. They all felt that they moved on and didn’t want to go back to this painful place, but very quickly and beautifully and courageously and generously they shifted and the tide turned. They said, “We understand and we get it, and we love you. And most of all, we trust you with the story.” It was extraordinary, really beautiful. Once they were in, they were all in. It was such a bonding experience, obviously intimate, and we had conversations we’d never had before.

We watched the movie together, and we held on to each other for an hour and 45 [minutes]. We started in four chairs, and then we ended up in two chairs. My sister and I and my brothers were all connected in this beautiful moment. We just cried together and experienced the film. Afterward, my sister said, “I feel like we are four people with one heart.” After I showed them the screening, my heart was so full. I remember thinking, “If nobody [else] sees this film, mission accomplished.” I was so happy because I did it for myself. I did it for them. I did it for healing, and they loved it and were proud. It was very organizing for all of us to put things in a sequential way.

My first concrete memories are from when I was about 3 years old, and it seems like that’s when most people start to form them. Do you have memories of your mom that you are sure of, that aren’t something someone told you or that you saw a picture of?

That is the question, right? That’s the question I’ve been asked my whole life, and it’s what I talk about in the movie. I saw an interview of me from my 20s, and I spoke about it with such clarity at the time that I remembered this moment sitting at a countertop in the kitchen where we had all our meals. It’s a dream sequence that I did in the movie that I thought I remembered eating my Kwisp cereal, and then my mom just walking by and stroking my head, and then another time being in bed with her. But I don’t know. That’s why I said [in the film], “I don’t know if that’s a real memory or something I wanted to happen.” It was very interesting — with [making] the movie, interviews are coming up that I haven’t seen in 30 years. I saw this interview and I went, “Wow.” I spoke about it with such clarity and conviction and was so concrete. But also being on SVU and learning about trauma and about what happens in trauma to our memory… I don’t know.

Can you tell me more about your decision at the time not to go public with the reality of who your biological dad is? It’s hard for me to imagine having something like that to hold in for as long as you did.

It was really a no-brainer for me. It was all about loyalty. I felt at the time because Mickey didn’t admit it to me, because he said it wasn’t true, and he was such a loyal human and [someone] who I thought was the best father — I saw how much it hurt him in the moment of me confronting him.

It was like an oath that I took, and I never even entertained it. Once he said, “It’s not true, you’re Hungarian, you look like my father. You’re my daughter,” I remember feeling like that was the moment that I became an adult. That was the moment that I went, “Oh, I love you more than my pain. I love you. I will never betray you, because you never betrayed me.” I felt, on a visceral level his pain, and I said, “I will never contribute to your pain like this.” That’s what it was about.

And when I met Nelson, that’s what I said to him — “I have a father. I want nothing from you. I just wanted to know. That’s it. We’re not going to be family now.” Then, you know, things evolve and grow, and I think we all have to maintain an open heart and mind. But as time went on and things came more into perspective, I realized nothing could take away my commitment, devotion, respect, and loyalty to Mickey. So part of this is a love letter to him.

I’m also curious how your relationship with your sisters on the Sardelli side of your family has changed since making the film.

It’s been so extraordinary for me to have both sides of my family together, and all of us to be in Carnegie Hall [the film screened there as part of the Tribeca Festival]. The first time everyone was together was at my 60th birthday. I invited them both. Obviously, they at this point know each other, but I’m profoundly grateful to my sisters for putting my pain and need to keep this a secret first. I’m so struck by the extraordinary selflessness that they went, “OK, this is how she wants it. You know, she can’t handle it.” But it was so difficult for them to be secrets, and to not be able to claim our sisterhood. We have always been very close from the minute we met. It was an extraordinary act of selflessness and an act of love and generosity. I think now they’re just so happy, and we all feel so free. To see the two families interact now is just a gift.

From what we see in the film, they also seem like a fun hang.

They’re a real fun hang. From the minute we met, we went, “Wait, we all have exact same personality.” There’s a shorthand. It’s weird because we’re so similar, and we laugh and have the same sense of humor. It’s been so freeing and glorious and healing. I can’t believe all the gifts that have come from it. This idea of breaking the generational trauma was so important to me, and to go into this very uncharted territory and really not know what you’re going to find — documentaries are hard and complicated for all different reasons, and I didn’t know what the outcome was going to be, obviously. This has surpassed my wildest dreams, and that was my hope. This is a very specific film. A very specific story, a very personal one. And yet unbelievably universal. That has been the biggest feedback that I’ve received. So many people have said this resonates with them.

Jayne was famously, infamously, however you want to put it, pigeonholed as a sex symbol. Obviously there was a lot more to her, and she strained against that image later in her life and career. When you were starting out, whether it was conscious or not, were you on guard against being typecast?

Completely. I didn’t want to do it like that. I didn’t want to be pigeonholed. I thought I was going to end up being a comedian — and my mother was very funny. One thing that my dad told me all the time is that who she was at home was very different than who she was out in the world, this persona. Comedy and a sense of humor is one of the things I value the most — truly, how we can get through life without it? But that was very hard for me when I used to walk into rooms and people would say, “Oh, I was expecting a blonde” or “Oh, I was expecting this.” It was so obnoxious, and so short-sighted.

But also, the fact that somebody would say that — even at 20 years old, I was like, “Really? That’s what you got for me?” I couldn’t walk into any room [with a] clean slate. There was a self-consciousness that I carried with me, and I couldn’t just be free. I remember being so jealous of people who have anonymity, who were free as an artist to try anything, to go into different pockets, and experiment and see where creative spirit took you. I felt like people were judging. They’d already made a decision about me — “Oh, it’s Jayne Mansfield’s daughter” — and I hated it. I hated it.

I really did rebel and went into different [kinds of roles]. I mean, I played an ex-con on one of my first series [laughs]. And God knows how many cops I’ve played — which is so funny, because I’m from Los Angeles, born and raised, and I keep getting cast as New York City cops, even before SVU. But even as a kid, I used to be asked, “Are you from New York?” People thought I had a New York energy. I was asked as a kid, are you Italian? Because I gesticulate — I can’t help it, I’ve always been like this. I get in trouble on SVU. They’re like, “Sit on your hands.” But those were the things I was asked — am I from New York, and am I Italian? And now look at me [laughs]. Yes to both.

Lastly, I wanted to ask how your perceptions might have changed over the course of making this, from research to filming to editing, and now that you’ve seen the finished product and it’s about to go out into the wider world.

Everything has changed. This has been a glorious and surprising and really mind-blowing experience. Cathartic is the word I would use, and there have been so many epiphanies. But also to be settled in my identity is something I’ve really struggled with for so long.

Are you asking me as a person or filmmaker?

Both, I guess.

As a person, it’s been so extraordinary to go through something I was so frightened of, and then come out the other side and receive so many gifts — the miracle of peace, identity, the closeness that I have achieved with my family; the intimacy and forgiveness. There are so many themes in the film, but the way I describe it is that I have so much more internal space. When we’re living our truth, we have clarity, but also internal space. I was so full of this lie. Or people would say, “Oh, you’re Hungarian,” and every time I’d be like [she recoils]. It’s like your cells react to it. Living this costly loyalty where I was betraying myself. I wanted to get myself out of that prison, and then it turned out to be the greatest thing ever.

As a filmmaker, it’s been extraordinary what I’ve learned — and what I learned that I already know from my experience on SVU, even though there’s nothing more different than directing narrative and a documentary. I went in with such openness and curiosity, but also [the attitude that] I am going into the unknown. I am committing to my vulnerability, but practice what you preach, baby, because I’ve always said that my vulnerability is like my superpower. In reclaiming my identity, my true identity and my truth as a person, I got more creative space back and was brave as a filmmaker to try things.

It was deeply, deeply fulfilling to work with this group. Everybody would just work and work and have a deep commitment. I’ve been on SVU for a long time, and why I’m still there is because I’m extremely invested. It’s not just me, it’s everyone. And if I wasn’t, I wouldn’t be there. I care about that show like I did the first day. To work with all these directors, to learn so much — even though it’s so different [with a documentary] — to see all these things, I realize how much I’ve learned. The confidence now at this age, and with everything I’ve done, to have the insistence of your own vision, to trust in your own vision is such a gift. I couldn’t have made this movie [earlier]. But I trust myself now.

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My Mom Jaynepremieres at 8 p.m. ET June 27 on HBO and Max.