History is repeating itself for Jennifer Love Hewitt.

On Nov. 11, the actress’ daughter Autumn earned her SAG card at age 10, just like Hewitt did 35 years ago. “I had this flash of my mom handing me my card at 10 years old,” Hewitt tells PEOPLE in this week’s issue. “I was dying, it was so cool.”

Even cooler? Autumn earned the card by acting alongside her mom on 9-1-1, the TV drama on which the Party of Five alum has played 9-1-1 dispatcher Maddie Han since 2018, and The Holiday Junkie, her mom’s new Lifetime Christmas movie also starring her dad, Brian Hallisay, 46, and two brothers Atticus, 9, and Aidan, 3.

While Autumn — who turned 11 on Nov. 26 — is off to a strong start in the industry, Hewitt also has some trepidation about her daughter rushing into an acting career, due, in part, to her own experience as a teen idol in the ’90s.

“She’s a really happy, secure, amazing kid, and I want her to stay that way,” she says. “I think it would be good for her to wait a little bit, but she has big dreams of being a star on a Disney show, and she’s a very good manifester. I just may have to get out of the way like my mom did.”

When she was 10, Hewitt moved to Los Angeles with her late mom Pat — who died of cancer at 67 in 2012 — after her star quality attracted attention in their native Texas.

“From the time that I was super little, I was very aware that entertaining was something that made people happy, and I loved making people happy,” she says. “My mom, I don’t think she would’ve chosen this for me, but she got out of my way and let me follow my dreams.”

After booking roles in commercials and on Disney Channel’s Kids Incorporated, Hewitt broke through when she joined Fox’s teen drama Party of Five in season 2 as Sarah Reeves in 1995.

Two years later she cemented her status when she landed the role of final girl Julie James in I Know What You Did Last Summer.

“My daughter is now aware that I was a big part of the ’90s, so she’s like, ‘Oh my gosh, you were the ’90s, you’re back again,’ ” Hewitt recalls. “I’m like, ‘All right, that makes me feel really old.’”

As her star continued to rise in her teens and 20s, viewers began to look at Hewitt as a sex symbol, the implications of which she didn’t quite grasp at the time.

“I was pretty innocent,” she says. “I didn’t know anything about my sexuality, yet I was on the cover of Maxim…I just knew that as I went along, the outfits at the photo shoots got smaller. Now I look back on it and go, ‘That’s intense.'”

As her three kids grow up, Hewitt — who also gives insight into her family life in her new book Inheriting Magic: My Journey Through Grief, Joy, Celebration, and Making Every Day Magical — is happy they’ll have her and her husband as role models.

“Me and Brian have been together almost 13 years; that’s like 190 years in Hollywood,” Hewitt jokes. “I’m proud of that. I’m here to give them all the advice I’ve got, and so is their daddy.”

Source: People

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Jennifer Love Hewitt was a guest on “Good Morning America” this morning! Check out her interview in our video archive by clicking on the image below!

Jennifer Love Hewitt sits down with ET’s Denny Directo to discuss her journey with grief and how her mother inspired her new book, ‘Inheriting Magic,’ out now.

Jennifer Love Hewitt chats with ET about directing her family in her new film, ‘Holiday Junkie,’ out Dec. 14 on Lifetime.

E! News chats with Jennifer Love Hewitt about her new Holiday movie ‘The Holiday Junkie’ and opens up about her late mother has inspired her. For even more, tune in to E! News Mon through Thurs at 11 PM on E!

Jennifer Love Hewitt is relishing a recent milestone.

On Nov. 21, the 9-1-1 actress, 45, and her husband, actor Brian Hallisay, celebrated 11 years of marriage.

“That’s like 190 years in Hollywood,” Hewitt jokes in this week’s issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands Friday. “I’m really proud of the family we’ve made together. I’m proud of us.”

Though they first met on the set of Love Bites in 2011, Hewitt and Hallisay, 46, didn’t start dating until a year later, when they reunited on the set of the Lifetime series The Client List in 2012.

“I thought he was the most beautiful man I had ever seen in my life,” Hewitt recalls. “I said to my manager and friend at the time: ‘I’m going to marry that man, and I’m going to have his children.’ She said, ‘Sweetheart, I think everybody thinks they’re going to marry that man and have his children.’ I was like, ‘Yeah, but I’m going to do it. Just watch.'”

While it was love at first sight for Hewitt, she says it was more of a “slow burn” for Hallisay.

“I don’t know that it was instant for him,” she says. “But it was instant for me, and it wasn’t just what he looked like. He was kind and he was good and close with his family and he was smart. We just had fun, and I was smitten. I got lucky enough to end up with him. And guess what? I did marry him, and I did have his kids.”

Five days before their daughter Autumn’s arrival in 2013, Hewitt and Hallisay got married in the backyard of their home in Los Angeles. When they moved houses in 2020, they decided to have another backyard wedding at their new abode, and this time their daughter and their son Atticus, now 9, got to serve as witnesses.

“It was very sweet, and it was so great for our kids to be there and have that as a memory,” Hewitt says. “They talk about it all the time, which I love. It was during [the height of] COVID, so we were just grasping for magic at that time. It really did become a magical time for us.”

In 2021, the couple welcomed their youngest son, Aidan, 3.

“We, I think, struggle like most parents with three kids and full-time jobs and all of the things to find our time, but I really do wake up and choose Brian every day, and I would choose him every time,” Hewitt says. “I genuinely feel that way, even when he makes me crazy. And he continues to choose me, thank God. I am always so profoundly happy that my kids are half him.”

Hewitt and Hallisay got to fall in love all over again while starring together in the new Lifetime Christmas movie The Holiday Junkie, premiering Dec. 14. It was inspired by the actress’ love of the holidays and her journey with the grief of losing her mom, Pat, at 67 in 2012.

“It was really fun to be in a movie honoring my mom with Brian because he does such a great job of honoring her in our life, even though he only met her once,” Hewitt says. “So it was special having him there. It’s like our little Christmas love letter that we’ll always have.”

Hewitt is also excited to share her mom’s story in her new book Inheriting Magic: My Journey Through Grief, Joy, Celebration, and Making Every Day Magical.

“Now, having written the book and doing the movie, I feel so much closer to her in some weird way because I feel like she is watching and knows that she’s being celebrated on such a big level,” she says. “I’m really grateful for that, and it’s really put the grief in a new place.”

The Holiday Junkie premieres on Saturday, Dec. 14 a 8 p.m. ET on Lifetime.

Source: People