Mariska Hargitay was at her Manhattan penthouse, a space as vibrant and full of life as she is. She moved quickly, energetically bounding up the stairs of her bustling home, and I had to move fast just to stay on her heels.

Mariska Hargitay Comes to Terms With a Lifetime of Family Secrets

As we navigated her busy household, she paused briefly to check on her eldest son — tall, respectful, and just back from his freshman year at Princeton. Simultaneously, she oversaw the preparations for an engagement party she was throwing for her goddaughter. Outside, the sounds of gardening filled the terrace air, and she offered a gracious — though unnecessary — apology for the background commotion.

Dominating the center of her living room was her newest passion project: a family heirloom grand piano, hoisted into her apartment by crane and now sitting regally beneath the Manhattan skyline. A bench custom-embroidered with an “M,” a gift from her husband, actor Peter Hermann, sat in front. “This is next on my list — I’m going to learn to play,” she declared enthusiastically.

We made our way downstairs to a cozy maze of jewel-toned offices, filled with plush seating and bold portraits by Annie Leibovitz. On one shelf, casually placed among books and framed photos, sat a few of Hargitay’s accolades — Emmys she earned for her longstanding portrayal of Olivia Benson on Law & Order: SVU, and for producing the impactful 2017 documentary I Am Evidence, which exposed the nationwide backlog of untested rape kits.

But it was in these rooms that Hargitay recently embarked on her most personal and transformative work to date: the documentary My Mom Jayne. More than just a film, it’s a vulnerable, deeply intimate journey into her own family’s story. The film paints an honest picture of her late mother, the 1950s bombshell Jayne Mansfield, who tragically passed away when Mariska was just three. It’s also a heartfelt tribute to her father, Mickey Hargitay, a former Mr. Universe-turned-actor. But beyond that, the documentary becomes a self-examination — a search for truth, identity, and clarity around long-held family secrets.

Now 61, Hargitay says creating the film, which premieres June 27 on HBO, has brought her peace in a way she never expected. “I see the truth clearly now,” she said. “It’s as if a heavy fog lifted — a veil of fear, really. And in its place, I feel peace. It’s a miraculous feeling I didn’t think I’d ever have.”

“So much of the pain comes from silence,” she continued. “And I just wanted to speak. I’m not afraid anymore. I can be more like Olivia Benson now.”

In the film, Hargitay delves into what she calls her “bumpy ride,” physically and emotionally unpacking her past. She sifts through fan letters from decades ago, reopens long-forgotten storage units, and seeks answers to unresolved questions. Through this process, she not only pieces together a deeper understanding of her mother — whose tragic death in a car crash she and her brothers survived — but also confronts the truth about her own origins and identity.

The film captures her struggle to understand womanhood in the spotlight, the challenges of motherhood and fame, and the emotional parallels between her real life and her on-screen persona. Her performance as Benson — a character born from rape, with a fraught relationship with her own mother — echoed aspects of Hargitay’s personal experience. “I did sometimes feel like I came from something painful,” she said. That pain, she believes, is part of why she connected so deeply with the character. “Maybe that’s why I understood her so well.”

Hargitay filmed much of the documentary between shooting SVU, taking time off to fly to Las Vegas for her very first interview — with Nelson Sardelli, the singer who had a brief relationship with her mother and, as the film confirms, is her biological father. She’d known him for decades but had never asked the hard questions until she decided to make this film. “Why didn’t you acknowledge me?” she asks him, visibly channeling some of Benson’s signature intensity.

Since its debut in 1999, Benson has become the longest-running character on the longest-running primetime drama in American television history. Countless women have opened up to Hargitay about their own traumatic experiences, often with heartbreaking detail. That emotional weight — and the character’s origin story — has always resonated on a personal level for her.

The overlap between her life and her work grew even more striking when, just last year, Hargitay publicly shared that she was raped in her 30s — a truth she had hidden for years, even from herself. Her longtime co-star Christopher Meloni, who played Elliot Stabler, said watching the documentary was cathartic. “It was like seeing someone walk right into the fire. And she wasn’t acting — that’s her real fire,” he said. “I was so proud of her.”

For most of her life, Hargitay had no idea Mickey Hargitay wasn’t her biological father. But even as a child, she sensed something wasn’t right. “I just felt different,” she said. “I didn’t look like my siblings. I felt like I didn’t really belong.” Her suspicions lingered, unspoken.

Mansfield, who died at just 34, had five children from three different marriages. Her most high-profile husband was Mickey, a Hungarian-born bodybuilder who used his Mr. Universe title to pivot into film. The two were Hollywood’s “It Couple” for a while — flamboyant, camera-ready, and regularly performing together. But Mansfield’s impressive talents, which included classical music training and fluency in multiple languages, were overshadowed by her sexualized image. The industry often reduced her to her appearance, casting her as a Monroe-like blonde bombshell and relegating her to roles that focused on her body, not her brain.

Mariska often looked back at her mother’s choices with a mixture of sadness and strength. In the documentary, she even asks her older sister, “Do you think she could have done it differently?” Footage of Mansfield earnestly playing violin or defending her intellect, only to be dismissed with laughter and leering, speaks volumes.

In contrast, Hargitay charted a different course. Her filmography is largely free of “girlfriend” roles; even early on, she gravitated toward characters with substance — lawyers, detectives, women with grit. “I’m not glamorous,” she said. “I’m jeans and flats.” Meloni put it plainly: “She’s a baller. You can’t knock her off her game.”

After Mansfield’s death, stories about her largely vanished from family conversation. There were no tales of holiday traditions or favorite meals. Occasionally, a humorous anecdote surfaced — like the time one of Mansfield’s many dogs had an accident in front of royalty — but mostly, Hargitay said, her father’s main message was that Mansfield had been misled. “He always told me people tried to mold her, change her,” she said. “I took that to heart. When someone in casting told me to change my name and get a nose job, I told him off. It didn’t shake me.”

Her resilience came in part from Mickey Hargitay, who instilled in her a fierce work ethic and devotion to family. “He came to every swim meet. He’d do gymnastics with me in the living room every night before dinner,” she recalled, her voice catching. “He taught me perseverance.”

Though he wasn’t her biological father, Mickey raised her after Mansfield’s death alongside his wife Ellen Siano and Mariska’s brothers, Mickey Jr. and Zoltan. The truth about her paternity was something some siblings knew, but it remained unspoken — until now.

Today, she has built a meaningful relationship with Sardelli, who recently spent Father’s Day with her and grew emotional when she told him she was thankful for his choices. And while she now knows the truth, Mickey remains her father in every way that counts. Making the film, she said, was not a betrayal but a tribute. “This is my way of saying thank you,” she said. “I’m screaming from the rooftops — he’s the best dad, and everything strong and good in me came from him.”

She’s also embraced her extended family on Sardelli’s side, including two half-sisters she’s known for years without knowing the truth. Even her children — August, 18; Amaya, 14; and Andrew, 13 — had long noticed a resemblance to Sardelli. “They’d say, ‘He really looks like you,’ and I’d say, ‘Funny, right? He’s just a good family friend,’” she laughed softly. “But I didn’t want to keep up that charade anymore. I didn’t want to lie to my kids.”

Before production began, she flew to California to speak with her stepmother and siblings, laying the groundwork for a film that not only tells her story, but reclaims it — for herself, for her family, and for everyone who’s ever lived in the silence of untold truths.d now.”