Jennifer Love Hewitt is opening up for the first time about her close relationship with her mother in new book Inheriting Magic — the title of which she says describes how she’s carried on her mother, Patricia Mae’s, legacy of making everyone around her feel special.
“I would be on a very successful television show, we would walk into a restaurant and people couldn’t care less about me; that was my mother,” said Hewitt in conversation with 9-1-1 co-star Bryan Safi at a celebration for the upcoming book and Lifetime movie The Holiday Junkie at Zibby’s Bookshop in Los Angeles. “They wanted to know who was the woman that I was standing next to because she was light, she was joy. She made friends with everyone, there was no stranger in the world to her whatsoever.”
Hewitt went on to share an example of how her mother made even the most un-extraordinary days feel magical at home. “If I had a broken heart or a bad day, she would put up Christmas lights because she believed that that sort of lifted the mood,” she said, laughing at the memory. “If I had bad cramps, there were lights.”
Patricia Mae died from complications from cancer on June 12, 2012, at the age of 67. The media, Hewitt says, learned of the news before she did.
“The part that I didn’t put in the book is that actually the press knew that my mom had passed before I did,” said Hewitt, who at the time was in Monaco for the 52nd Monte Carlo TV Festival. “The flight time with me getting back was so long. It was like a 10-and-a-half-hour flight, so by the time I arrived, everybody knew, and it was such a weird thing for me. But then later on, I was like, but everybody’s always known everything about my life kind of before. Even breakups, people have been like, ‘He was cheating on you already.’ Really, people? Like, why didn’t you tell me?”
Twelve years later, Hewitt says she finally feels ready to share her memories of her mother and the ways in which she now makes life magical for her family as a mom, through her book which is set for release on Dec. 10. “I honestly hadn’t ever said that much about my mother after she passed, because I didn’t have the words,” she told The Hollywood Reporter. “I just didn’t know what to say, and this felt like the right time to talk about her and sort of say, ‘This is what she left behind.'”
Some of that experience will also be translated onscreen in The Holiday Junkie, which Hewitt directed, executive produced and stars in alongside her husband Brian Hallisay. Their three children also make a cameo in the film, set to premiere on Dec. 14.
“I really wanted a movie for everyone,” explained Hewitt of the story about a woman facing her first Christmas without her mother, who potentially finds love with a man unknowingly harboring his own grief. “I wanted a movie for people who were happy and for people who felt sad. I wanted both parties to be seen in the holidays because it is that way. As much as I am a holiday junkie, I find Christmas really hard without my mom. I always have a moment, sometimes I have more than that. And I think that’s OK. It doesn’t mean that you’re not in the festive AF spirit, you just have this hole in your heart, and it happens.”
On the set of the movie — which features a special guest star voice appearance from Kristin Chenoweth, who was close friends with Hewitt’s mom — a tribute was posted honoring the memories of those the cast and crew lost.
“We had a board where everybody would bring pictures of their loved ones who had passed, and every day, we dedicated the movie to all of them,” said Hewitt. “I really didn’t want it to feel like it was only my experience. I wanted it to be everyone’s. So it was really nice because the crew and everybody at the end were like, ‘I felt like I really honored my dad,’ or ‘I felt like I really honored my grandma,’ or ‘I felt like they were here with us.’ It felt like it was a journey for everyone, and we all, I think, felt like we let that go when it was done, and it was beautiful that way.”
Sharing one final memory of her mother, Hewitt recalled how every time she left the house for a shoot, no matter the time of day or night, her mother would ask to hold hands.
“I didn’t ask her until probably I was in like my very late 20s, I was like, ‘Why do we hold the hands? What is this about?’ Because I didn’t really get it. And she said, ‘I want you to take my love and support with you to work during the day. I want you to feel it and know that I’m with you.’ And I miss it,” said Hewitt. “It’s the thing I miss the most. I wish I had her hand.”
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