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Many legends have graced the Actors on Actors set, but few Hollywood dynasties have collided like Mariska Hargitay’s and Jamie Lee Curtis’. The former is the daughter of Jayne Mansfield, the ’50s bombshell who died
in an auto accident. Her rich and complicated legacy is the subject of Hargitay’s acclaimed documentary, “My Mom Jayne,” from HBO, which is in Emmy contention this year. More impressive is that Hargitay pulled the film together while playing the hard-driving detective Olivia Benson on NBC’s “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit,” a character who has only become more iconic over the show’s 27 years. The latter is the Oscar-winning daughter of screen legends Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh. Curtis has transformed over and over, from scream queen (“Halloween”) to ’80s comedy icon (“Trading Places”) to meme-worthy mom (“Freaky Friday” and FX’s “The Bear” ).
It’s easy to imagine the pair as old friends, catching each other on the coasts and dishing over the decades about co-stars, executives and their craft. But the famous offspring only recently became “sisters,” as they describe it. Variety was lucky to capture how and when they sparked, and what unfolds when memory lane looks a lot like the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Jamie Lee Curtis: Nobody knows this — you grew up in a pink house on Sunset Boulevard, which was once owned by Sonny and Cher and later purchased by Tony Curtis. He married this very young woman [she signals displeasure by raising her eyebrows]. He bought this house, and [you and I] met. There is a photograph of us standing in the driveway. We never saw each other after that. You ask yourself, “Why don’t we know each other when we have so much history with our families?”
Mariska Hargitay: We were sisters from another mother or father.
Curtis: When did we have that first phone call?
Hargitay: I was at the Beverly Hills Hotel. I had just started shooting my movie, “My Mom Jayne.” I was talking to [actress] Amy Landecker, saying you and I used to live next door, but we don’t know each other. She immediately connected us. I can’t remember if you called me or I called you.
Curtis: It doesn’t matter.
Hargitay: But it was like a missing piece of my life. And that first phone call was so emotional, because when we have histories like ours, we are in such a unique and singular position that people just can’t understand it unless they’ve lived it. You’re one of the most deeply sensitive, empathetic and compassionate humans that I’ve met. Your unique lens on my story was extraordinary.
Curtis: You explained to me that you were making a doc and had come back to Los Angeles and started going through [your mom’s] storage unit. But you didn’t tell me the secret you held for a very long time. I’m guessing there were people close to you who knew the story of your birth father [entertainer Nelson Sardelli]. Once it becomes a sensational secret, it’s going to get shared. You came to my house. I made a little lunch. I think I may have baked a little lemon cake for you.
Hargitay: You made a little pasta salad.
Curtis: [“My Mom Jayne”] is a gorgeous movie. For anyone uninitiated, that’s how we met, and that’s where the connective tissue is. It’s deep, raw, human and has nothing to do with show-off business, even though our whole lives have been in show-off business.
Hargitay: I had to separate you as an actor, because you were also just this sister that I got — one who understood my movie. I know that it brought up so much for you. Both of us have these complicated pasts.
But you texted me six months ago and said, “Your show has been on for 87 years — I can’t watch it all. Give me the top 10 episodes that you would want me to see, because I want to know you as an artist.” I asked you the same question about “The Bear.” I watched three episodes, and [the first two] were so magnificent. What you did, the layers and the pain you brought. But then I saw the episode “Ice Chips” [where Curtis’ character, Donna, sits with her estranged daughter in labor]. I couldn’t even comprehend it. And that you do it in two takes …
Curtis: My favorite job ever was a sitcom I did back in the day called “Anything but Love” with Richard Lewis. It was fantastic. I’d never been in front of a live audience. John Ritter was one of the producers of the show. I loved him. We were auditioning actors for the part of a rogue guy who kept coming on to me in a scene. Every actor who came in backed me up against a desk, and I had to push him off. After one guy left, John Ritter came over to me and he whispered in my ear, “You have really funny legs.”
Then I got to do “True Lies.” My character, Helen, was a fish out of water. She’s a housewife who becomes a spy. It was about doing things physically you aren’t supposed to do. I remembered John Ritter — freedom comes from fearlessness.
But you are the fucking heartbeat of [“Law & Order: SVU”]. That entire machine is driven by you. At the center of the work is you also as a humanitarian, you as an advocate for women who’ve been abused. You also wear it outside of work; I wear it outside of work. It’s part of the other sisterhood of caring.
Women are not often in positions of leadership. For the first time, you have a woman running [“SVU”]. How important was that for you?
Hargitay: It’s everything. Michele Fazekas, who is now our showrunner, is hilarious and talented. We also have a female directing producer named Brenna Malloy, who pushes me to new heights.
Curtis: [You and I] are two women over 60, both on shows that have women showrunners and directing producers. I’m only on [“Scarpetta”] because Nicole Kidman said, “Jamie is on the show, right?” I was a producer. I just wanted to be a boss; I didn’t want to have to put on the gear.
Hargitay: You do wear some gear in “Scarpetta.” You’re showing the girls [she nods toward
Curtis’ breasts].
Curtis: The girls were retired. It was all over.
So you’re about to do your first play.
Hargitay: This is a dream come true for me, to play in a different sandbox. I am very unlike Olivia Benson, but nobody knows that except for my friends. Being onstage has been my lifelong goal. [In my 20s], I became friends with the amazing [actstage actress] Kathleen Chalfant. She said, “Don’t sell out and do TV.” An hour later I got “SVU.” So that was a hard call to make. Getting this call from my agent with the offer for the play “Every Brilliant Thing,” I was pinching myself. Can you come?
Curtis: Of course I’m going to come.
