Mariska Hargitay is heading into Emmy week with two trophies already in hand. The Law & Order: SVU star won twice for My Mom Jayne: A Film by Mariska Hargitay, the deeply personal HBO documentary she made about her mother, Jayne Mansfield.
The Television Academy lists Hargitay as the winner for Outstanding Directing for a Documentary/Nonfiction Program and as a producer on the winner for Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Special. The awards were presented during the first night of the 78th Emmys ceremonies in Los Angeles.
The wins carry a very different weight from the Emmy most viewers associate with Hargitay. She last won in 2006 for playing Olivia Benson on SVU. Two decades later, the new trophies recognize work behind the camera and a story built around her own family history rather than the character that made her a television fixture.
My Mom Jayne examines the life and legacy of Mansfield through Hargitay's perspective as her daughter. The film uses family material and personal investigation to revisit a public figure whose image was often reduced to Hollywood mythology, while Hargitay wrestles with what that mythology meant inside her own family.
The timing gives the moment another layer. Hargitay is also set to host the main 78th Emmy Awards telecast on September 14, meaning she will walk onto the Peacock Theater stage a little over a week after collecting two awards of her own.
For a career that has been defined publicly by one extraordinarily long-running television role, the two wins underline a second chapter: Hargitay is now being recognized not just as Olivia Benson, but as the filmmaker who chose her most personal story for her directing debut.
