Law & Order: SVU star Mariska Hargitay shared an emotional message with fans after she won an award at the Critics Choice Documentary Awards

Mariska Hargitay is seen arriving at the “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” on June 16, 2025 in New York City.

Mariska Hargitay admitted her “heart is so full” as she shared an emotional message with fans following her big win at the Critics Choice Documentary Awards on November 9. The Law & Order: SVU star took home the award for Best First Documentary Feature for My Mom Jayne, her documentary about her late mother, actress Jayne Mansfield. Accepting the award, Mariska gave a heartfelt speech at the ceremony, telling the crowd: “I’m just so grateful because I never knew how this film would be received, and it’s been extraordinary.”

She continued: “I knew that I wanted my mother’s story to be told, but it took me a long time to understand that I was the one who was called to tell it, and I would be charged with directing it and how it would be told.” Concluding her speech, Marisa added: “I say to all of us who are called to tell our stories, by all means, let’s tell them.”

On Monday, Mariska took to Instagram to share her career achievement with her followers. Reflecting on her win, she wrote: “I’m still so deeply fulfilled from last night. A true honor to be in that room of artists, storytellers and change-makers…I’m so grateful that I got to share my mother’s story—and mine. Deepest thanks to audiences and critics for how you’ve received this film. My heart is so full.”

 

In April, the actress announced that she had teamed up with HBO on the documentary, which marks her feature film directorial debut. Speaking in a statement, Mariska said: “This movie is a labor of love and longing. It’s a search for the mother I never knew, an integration of a part of myself I’d never owned, and a reclaiming of my mother’s story and my own truth. I’ve always believed there is strength in vulnerability, and the process of making this film has confirmed that belief like never before.”

Speaking at the premiere, she told People: “This is my story to tell. I had a rough time with the fact that somebody else told it before I did, and that was the impetus of the movie – that I wanted to tell my story. I encourage a lot of women, and men, to tell their stories… I feel like this has been sort of divinely protected, that it hasn’t come out in the world. And so it’s like I was protected until I was ready to tell my story.”

Mariska was only three years old when, in 1967, her mother, then only 36 years old, died in a car crash in Biloxi, Mississippi. Mariska was in the car, a 1966 Buick Electra 225, when it crashed head-on at high speed into the back of a tractor-trailer, instantly killing her mom, along with her attorney, Sam Brody, and their driver, Ronnie Harrison, who was 20 at the time. Mariska and her brothers, Mickey Jr. and Zoltan, were in the back of the car and escaped with minor injuries.