October 10, 2025
Mariska Hargitay Interviews Her Siblings in ‘My Mom Jayne’ Trailer: EXCLUSIVE


Mariska Hargitay has helped people share their stories for years on TV and through her foundation, and now, she wants to share hers.

The trailer for โ€œMy Mom Jayne,โ€ the โ€œLaw & Order: SVUโ€ starโ€™s documentary about her late mother, Jayne Mansfield, aired exclusively June 3 on TODAY.

The HBO film, which premiered in May at the Cannes Film Festival, is also the first project under Hargitayโ€™s newly launched production company, Mighty Entertainment.

Hargitay narrates the trailer, which opens with black-and-white footage of Mansfield before jumping to video of Hargitay opening boxes and sorting through memorabilia about her mom.

โ€œIโ€™ve spent my whole life distancing myself from my mother, Jayne Mansfield, the sex symbol,โ€ she says, as racy images of Mansfield pop up on screen.

Through โ€œdeeply personalโ€ interviews with her siblings and through Mansfieldโ€™s belongings, โ€œMariska assembles a new picture of the extraordinary, complex woman whose image and legacy she resisted for so many years,โ€ according to a press release from HBO.
Through โ€œdeeply personalโ€ interviews with her siblings and through Mansfieldโ€™s belongings, โ€œMariska assembles a new picture of the extraordinary, complex woman whose image and legacy she resisted for so many years,โ€ according to a press release from HBO. HBO

Old news clips and photos document the Hollywood bombshellโ€™s rise to fame.

โ€œI use my pinup-type publicity to get my foot in the door,โ€ Mansfield says in one of the videos.

"My Mom Jayne."
“With courage and vulnerability, Mariska engages in the process of opening herself to a new, hard-won collection of memories โ€” and a deeper level of truth,” the HBO release states about the film.Courtesy HBO

As an image of Olivia Benson โ€” Hargitayโ€™s famous โ€œSVUโ€ character โ€” appears, the Emmy winner explains that her motherโ€™s path to stardom made her want to carve a much different career for herself in the entertainment industry.

โ€œBut I want to understand her now,โ€ Hargitay says.

She then reflects on losing her parents, saying she has no memories of her mom, who died in a car accident in 1967 when Hargitay was 3 years old. Hargitay and two of her brothers, Zoltan and Mickey Jr., were in the car at the time of the accident. Their father, Hungarian bodybuilder Mickey Hargitay, raised them and died in 2006.

Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
Hargitay plays the tough yet tender Capt. Olivia Benson on “Law & Order: SVU,” a character she’s portrayed since the show began in 1999.NBC

Hargitay says sheโ€™s never talked to her siblings, including the oldest โ€” Jayne Marie, whom Mansfield had with her high school boyfriend turned husband at 17 โ€” about their experiences with their mom.

The trailer shows Hargitay, who also serves as director of the film, respectively settling her brothers and sister in for interviews.

โ€œAnything you ask, you know Iโ€™m there for you,โ€ Mickey Jr. says.

โ€œYou have all these memories, and Iโ€™m envious of that,โ€ Hargitay expresses in another scene to Jayne Marie, who was 16 when Mansfield died.

โ€œIn the beginning, I had her to myself,โ€ Jayne Marie says over archival video footage of her with her mom. โ€œSheโ€™d take me everywhere.โ€

Mansfield, who spoke to the press often and especially loved her fans, took her kids almost everywhere she went on the road.

โ€œWhen youโ€™re a kid, you donโ€™t know anything else,โ€ Mickey Jr. says. โ€œThis is life.โ€

Jayne Mansfield and Mickey Hargitay With Their Children.
Mickey Hargitay with Jayne Mansfield and children Zoltan, Mickey Jr., Mariska and Jayne Marie in 1966.Bettmann / Bettmann Archive

Zoltan says in the trailer that their motherโ€™s playful on-camera persona, which included a put-on, breathy voice, was โ€œactually a character.โ€

โ€œThe public pays to see me a certain way,โ€ Mansfield says in an old clip.

โ€œI looked the other way because I knew she was really smart,โ€ Mickey Jr. says of his mom, who was fluent in multiple languages and played violin and piano.

โ€œAt home, she was just Jayne,โ€ Jayne Marie says.

โ€œIโ€™ve heard things that are really ugly,โ€ Hargitay says.

โ€œI donโ€™t know that I want to know those ugly things,โ€ says Tony Cimber, Hargitayโ€™s half brother, whom Mansfield had with ex-husband and director Matt Cimber.

Hargitay revealed publicly for the first time in a May 2025 interview with Vanity Fair that her biological father isnโ€™t Mickey Hargitay, but Italian singer Nelson Sardelli. The topic also appears to be touched upon near the end of the trailer.

Mariska Hargitay and father Mickey Hargitay in 2004.
Hargitay also described the documentary to Vanity Fair as a “love letter” to dad Mickey Hargitay because “thereโ€™s no one that I was closer to on this planet.” Here, they’re pictured in 2004 in NYC.Evan Agostini / Getty Images

โ€œI pulled out this picture, couldnโ€™t believe what I was seeing. It was like the floor fell out from underneath me,โ€ Hargitay says.

โ€œWhy didnโ€™t he tell me?โ€ Hargitay asks brother Zoltan.

She told Vanity Fair she once confronted their father about Sardelli but said he denied the claim, and she never mentioned Sardelli to him again.

Thatโ€™s just one layer to the documentaryโ€™s narrative, which has a singular, larger focus for Hargitay.

โ€œReclaiming our family story โ€” that is what this is about for me,โ€ Hargitay says over clips of her siblings coming together in a garage full of their motherโ€™s memories, โ€œbecause sheโ€™s a part of me.โ€

โ€œI want to know her as Jayne โ€” my mom, Jayne,โ€ she says, as the video fades to black showing footage of Mansfield smiling and playing the piano.

โ€œMy Mom Jayneโ€ will have its North American premiere June 13 at the Tribeca Festival. It will air June 27 on HBO at 8 p.m. ET and stream on Max.

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