Months after Mariska Hargitay released the documentary My Mom Jayne, she spoke about her process in telling the story of her mother, Hollywood icon Jayne Mansfield.
While audiences many know Mariska as Olivia Benson on Law & Order: SVU, she’s also the daughter of the legendary actress who was killed in a car crash in 1967. Mariska and two of her siblings were in the car with their mother at the time of her untimely passing.
How My Mom Jayne came to be:
“I feel like people say, How long have you been preparing to make this movie?” began Mariska.
“There are two answers. I made the movie in two and a half years, and I’ve been preparing to make it my entire life.”
“I feel like that’s what I’ve been doing is getting ready to make it, building the infrastructure inside me so I could tell the story in a clear, concise way while battling all these demons.”
The idea for a documentary came to her during the pandemic. She finally had time to examine her family’s history a bit closer. Mariska began to confront “some things that I sort of pushed away.” That included sorting through boxes filled with photographs of her mother and letters from people who had known her.
Expected the unexpected:
Mariska knew she had to be mentally prepared to dive into the project.
“[This] has been cathartic and extraordinary and scary and bumpy. That’s why I talk about shoring myself up and making sure that I had the infrastructure internally to make this film.”
“I didn’t want to re-injure myself or my family, quite frankly.”
The Emmy Award-winning actress continued, “I went into something that I was so afraid of, I was so afraid of it.”
“Then I went, ‘Either I live like this and I carry it for the rest of my life, or, as we all know, the only way out is through.'”
“So I thought only way I’m going to ever be free and unburden myself is to find out what happened.”
“And [I] was yearning and longing so much for my mom, to figure out who she was [and] where do I come from? Who am I?”
Taste Buds – If you haven’t already watched Mariska’s documentary, My Mom Jayne, I couldn’t recommend it more. Jayne’s life was fascinating, and Mariska has a real knack for storytelling.
