Jennifer Love Hewitt Shares the Sweet Thing Son Atticus Did After Seeing Her Film 'Really Hard Scene' on9-1-1(Exclusive)

Mar. 15, 2025

Jennifer Love Hewitt and her son Atticus.Photo:Courtesy of Lifetime

Jennifer Love Hewitt on the set of The Holiday Junkie with her kids. Autumn [age 11] on the left, and Atticus [age 9] on the right. sent over by kerri@benbellabooks.com

Courtesy of Lifetime

Jennifer Love Hewittrecently had a special visitor on the set of9-1-1.

In this week’s issue of PEOPLE, the actress, 45, shares how her 9-year-old son Atticus got to spend the day with her at work on a day off from school.

“Seeing what I get to do for a living through his eyes was so cool,” Hewitt says. “We got to eat lunch together in my trailer, and I had this really hard scene that I had to do where I was crying and he was just rubbing my back at the end of it, and he told me how proud he was. He was like, ‘Mommy, you work so hard. Thank you for working so hard.’ It was really sweet.”

Hewitt says all three of her kids —Atticus, Autumn, 11, and Aidan, 3,whom she shares withhusband Brian Hallisay— are “massive"9-1-1fans “totally separate from me.”

“I did not ask them to watch it,” she says. “They actually just watched it because some of their friends wanted to see it, and now they love it.”

Never miss a story — sign up forPEOPLE’s free daily newsletterto stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer​​, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

Jennifer Love Hewitt on ‘9-1-1’.Ray Mickshaw/disney

JENNIFER LOVE HEWITT, KENNETH CHOI, BAILEY LEUNG8BIM

Ray Mickshaw/disney

She was sold when she heard about who Maddie was.

“I was like, ‘Oh yeah, I have to do this. She’s different,’ " she says. “It has been absolutely amazing.”

Since her first day on9-1-1(which returns to ABC on March 6), Hewitt says she made clear that she has “to be a mom first and an actress second.”

“They really allow me to do that there on that show,” she says. “I mean, they know that I’m a hard worker and I love being there, and I give it my all when I’m there, but they are very kind and loving about the fact that I want to be with my kids. I want my kids to feel like they come first in our little world.”

Jennifer Love Hewitt attends FOX Summer TCA 2018 All-Star Party at Soho House on August 2, 2018.Frazer Harrison/Getty

Jennifer Love Hewitt attends FOX Summer TCA 2018 All-Star Party at Soho House on August 2, 2018.

Frazer Harrison/Getty

Now that her two eldest kids are “tweenagers,” though, she says they “want to send mommy off to work.”

“They wish that I would just be at9-1-1all the time because they think it’s the coolest show ever,” she says. “It’s just the best job, truly. It’s amazing.”

“Aidan is in the little snow scene, and Autumn and Atticus are in two scenes, so it was a real family affair,” Hewitt says. “It’s like our little Christmas love letter that we’ll always have.”

Hewitt further tells her family’s story in her new bookInheriting Magic: My Journey Through Grief, Joy, Celebration, and Making Every Day Magical.

“I’m really proud of the book, genuinely,” she says. “It was hard to write about grief and kind of scary to put my kids on the cover and show our life and everything, but it was exciting to write about who we are and what we believe in in hopes that it inspires people.”

For more on Jennifer Love Hewitt, pick up the latest issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands Friday, or subscribehere.

source: people.com