Mariska Hargitay has been on a journey her whole life to better understand her late mother, and now she’s sharing who the “extraordinary” Jayne Mansfield was with the world.
In “My Mom Jayne,” the HBO Original documentary Hargitay directed and produced about her mom, the actor interviews her family members about the woman she never got the chance to know.
“I want to know her as Jayne — my mom, Jayne,” Hargitay says in the trailer.
Using boxes of her mother’s memorabilia in a storage unit and the stories from her siblings, Hargitay pieces together who Mansfield was to her loved ones — beyond the Hollywood bombshell persona with the breathy voice known to the public.
After years of her own research, how would Hargitay describe her mom now?
“I would say she was a kind, compassionate, funny, empathetic, ambitious woman,” Hargitay tells TODAY.com.
She also describes her mom, who played violin and piano, as a musician and “an artist with a whole lot of dreams and an appetite for love.”
Mansfield’s love of music is highlighted in the documentary, as is the love she had for her children: Jayne Marie Mansfield, Mickey Hargitay Jr., Zoltan Hargitay, Mariska and Tony Cimber.
“I just think she was extraordinary,” Hargitay says, adding she thinks Mansfield was “ahead of her time.”
Hargitay told Savannah Guthrie and Craig Melvin on TODAY she had “a very complicated” relationship with her mother.
“I think I was angry that I didn’t know the person behind the pose, if you will,” she said.
“We want our moms to be normal. I wanted my mom to be June Cleaver,” she added. “I wanted just a regular mom that baked cookies and put notes in my lunch bag, and instead I had this mom that walked around in a bikini and heels. And what is that? And why are you talking like that?”
Hargitay explained as she got older and learned how people are “so complex,” she wanted to get to know “the other parts” of her mom.
Mansfield was often referred to as “the most photographed” woman during her Hollywood rise in the 1950s. She loved her fans and did many interviews over the course of her career, some of which are referenced in the documentary.
When Craig asked the “Law & Order: SVU” star what she believes her mom would think of the film, Hargitay said, “I think she would be really happy … talk about being seen for all her facets and not just one way. I think she’d be really happy that we got to make a movie together.”
Hargitay tells TODAY.com the documentary showed her that she and her mom have more in common than she realized.
“It’s so beautiful for me to see all the similarities and the things that I got from her,” she says.
“My Mom Jayne” will air June 27 on HBO at 8 p.m. ET and stream on HBO Max.
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