Driven By Loss, Oscar-Winning Actress Trains To Become ‘Death Doula’

Actress Nicole Kidman said she’s making a slightly morbid-sounding career move: training to become a “death doula.”

The 58-year-old discussed the transition during a talk at the University of San Francisco over the weekend, acknowledging that the work “sounds a little weird.”

A death doula is a non-medical companion who provides emotional, practical, and sometimes spiritual support to people nearing the end of life. The role has gained wider attention in recent years, including through portrayals in the popular medical drama “The Pitt.”  

Kidman said her interest in becoming a death doula was shaped by her experience caring for her mother, who died in September 2024 at age 84. Her father died in 2014.

“As my mother was passing, she was lonely, and there was only so much the family could provide,” Kidman said, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. “Between my sister and I, we have so many children and our careers and our work, and wanting to take care of her because my father wasn’t in the world anymore, and that’s when I went, ‘I wish there was these people in the world that were there to sit impartially and just provide solace and care.’”

“So that’s part of my expansion and one of the things I will be learning,” she added. 

Death doulas are apparently becoming a “thing” in Hollywood. “Hamnet” director Chloé Zhao revealed earlier this year that she has trained as one as well.

“The societal understanding of death and the space it gives to grief and how it’s embedded in the culture and the medicalization of death have shifted so much,” Zhao told The New York Times in January. “In the modern world, when death is no longer seen as a natural part of life — because now it’s about staying alive as long as we can — there’s almost shame around death.” 

“I have been terrified of death my whole life. I still am,” Zhao added. “Because I’ve been so afraid I haven’t been able to live fully … And because I’m so scared of it, I have no choice but to start to develop a healthier relationship with it, or the second half of life would be too hard.”