Mariska Hargitay’s Family Is a ‘Little More Healed’ After ‘My Mom Jayne’ (Exclusive)

Mariska Hargitay is reflecting on how My Mom Jayne impacted her family as a whole.  

In her feature film directorial debut, which won Best First Documentary Feature at the Critics Choice Documentary Awards on Nov. 9, Hargitay, 61, looks at the life of her late mother Jayne Mansfield. 

The film not only examines Mansfield’s expansive career in the 1950s and 1960s; it also dives into the legacy she left behind and family secrets later discovered following her tragic death in a 1967 car crash that Hargitay, then 3 years old, and two of her siblings survived. 

One of those secrets, which is revealed for the first time in the film, is that her biological father is not the man who raised her, Mickey Hargitay, but rather a man named Nelson Sardelli.

And while the process of making the film certainly had a deep impact on Hargitay, who has previously called the documentary “a transformative part of my life’s work,” it has also made a lasting impression on her children. 

“I think our whole family learned a lot,” Hargitay, who shares children August, 19, Amaya ,14, and Andrew, 14, with husband Peter Hermann, told PEOPLE at the DOC NYC Visionaries Tribute Luncheon on Nov. 12. “One of the things that I think it’s done for our family — [it’s] been very organizing, and for the kids who heard about pieces about this icon, this legend, to see a story… from the beginning to end, I think was really organizing, and everyone just feels so much, I think, lighter and clearer and a little bit more healed from it.”

“It’s been a very sacred journey with my family,” she concluded.

In addition to celebrating the personal project, which premiered on HBO Max in May, Hargitay is looking forward to the release of another documentary, Nuns vs. The Vatican, for which she is an executive producer. It will have its U.S. premiere on Nov. 15 as part of the DOC NYC documentary film festival. 

The film, which Hargitay executive produced, looks at the long-endured abuse women have faced within the Catholic church — a topic the actress says is “not talked about enough.”

“It’s something that’s been going on in the Catholic church for a long time that hasn’t gotten the attention that it needs, and it’s time to change it,” Hargitay says. “And I feel very strongly that Pope Leo is the one to do that. So it’s a very exciting time, and we’re hoping that this moves forward and people learn more about the issue and what nuns have been struggling with and take it to the next level and make some change.”