Nicole Kidman is ready to branch out beyond acting for her next chapter. In a talk at the University of San Francisco on Saturday, she revealed that she is training to become a death doula.
Death doulas, recently portrayed in the episode “The Pit” about a woman with terminal cancer, are non-medical companions who support people as they work through death, loss, and death. According to the International End-of-Life Doula Association, caregivers can provide psychosocial, emotional, spiritual, and practical support.
Speaking as part of the private university’s Silk Speaker Series, the actress said the idea came to her after her mother passed away in 2024 at the age of 84. She admitted that it “sounds a little strange.”
“My mother passed away and I was lonely. There was only so much a family could do,” Kidman told the crowd, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. “My sister and I had a lot of kids, careers, jobs, and I wanted to take care of my sister because my dad was no longer in this world. That’s when I thought, ‘I wish there were people in the world who would sit there fairly and just give me comfort and care.'”
“So it’s part of my growth and one of the things I learn,” she said. Kidman’s father died in a fall in 2014. The busy actress has recently appeared in Scarpetta and Margo’s Got Money Trouble, and has Practical Magic 2 set for release later this year.
Kidman is not the only Hollywood figure interested in helping people overcome end-of-life anxiety. “Hamnet” director Chloé Zhao also trained as a death doula, she told The New York Times. Zhao said one of her motivations was, “I’ve been afraid of death all my life. I still am. And I was so afraid of death that I couldn’t live to the fullest…And I’m so afraid of death that I have no choice but to start developing a healthier relationship with death. Otherwise, the second half of my life will be too difficult. It’s not so scary that I can’t even live.”
