Mariska Hargitay is an Emmy winner again.
My Mom Jayne, the HBO documentary Hargitay directed and produced about her late mother, Jayne Mansfield, won Best Documentary or Nonfiction Special on Saturday at the Creative Arts Emmy Awards. It’s Hargitay’s first Emmy in 20 years and her first as a filmmaker.
“My hero and friend Gloria Steinem recently said, ‘Please tell your own story.’ The most important thing that we can do for each other is to know each other through stories,” Hargitay said in her acceptance speech. “I got to know my mother through telling the story, and it is a gift that is indescribable.”
She continued,” It was such an extraordinary gift to tell the story and to tell it with experts. I learned so much in the process, and I got to know my mother, as I said. And so I just invite you all to tell your stories.”
The win caps an Emmy campaign that started with an Oscar snub. My Mom Jayne missed the Academy’s documentary lineup earlier this year despite taking the Producers Guild Award in February over three films that did make it — Mr. Nobody Against Putin, The Alabama Solution, and The Perfect Neighbor — plus Ocean With David Attenborough, which it faced again at the Emmys. It also won Best First Documentary Feature at the Critics Choice Documentary Awards and was named to the National Board of Review’s Top 5 Documentaries of 2025.
It’s the 14th win in this category for HBO, which has now taken it more than twice as often as any other network since the category was established in 1998. The other nominees were John Candy: I Like Me, Marty, Life Is Short, Mel Brooks: The 99 Year Old Man!, and Ocean With David Attenborough.
Hargitay also won Best Documentary or Nonfiction Directing for the film. The other nominees were Lawrence Kasdan for Marty, Life Is Short, Judd Apatow and Michael Bonfiglio for Mel Brooks: The 99 Year Old Man!, Rebecca Miller for Mr. Scorsese, and Alexandria Stapleton for Sean Combs: The Reckoning].
Hargitay spoke about the film at last month’s HBO Max Emmy Nominee Celebration, calling it “one of the most meaningful and extraordinary experiences” of her life. “It gave me the chance to heal our family, to honor my mother and her legacy, and to know her in a completely new way — a way that’s full of compassion and empathy and love. The journey was incredibly emotional, as you can imagine. It was surprising, and it was healing.”
She said “the response to the documentary has been profoundly moving,” and added, “Seeing it recognized along so many exceptional artists is something that I’m very grateful for.”
Hargitay won her first Emmy in 2006, taking Best Drama Actress for playing Olivia Benson on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. She was nominated in the category eight consecutive years, from 2004 to 2011. In 2019, she won a News & Documentary Emmy for producing I Am Evidence, the HBO film about the backlog of untested rape kits in the U.S.
What’s next? Hargitay hosts the 78th Primetime Emmy Awards on Sept. 14 — her first time emceeing the show. “I am having the time of my life working with these unbelievable writers,” she told Gold Derby. Season 28 of SVU, which is closing in on its 600th episode, premieres Oct. 8 on NBC.
