Nicole Kidman has revealed her next role: death doula.<\/p>\n
The Australian actor revealed she is now training to be a death doula \u2013 professionals who provide emotional, physical and psychological support to the dying \u2013 while speaking at the University of San Francisco.<\/p>\n
A doula, typically, is a professional who helps mothers during pregnancy and childbirth in a non-medical capacity. Death doulas have become more common in recent years \u2013 one was recently depicted in an episode of The Pitt \u2013 with some preferring the term \u201cend-of-life doula\u201d.<\/p>\n
Kidman told the audience that the idea to become a death doula came to her after her mother, Janelle Ann, died aged 84 in 2024.<\/p>\n
It \u201cmay sound a little weird\u201d, she admitted.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs my mother was passing, she was lonely, and there was only so much the family could provide,\u201d Kidman said, according to the San Francisco Chronicle<\/a>. \u201cBetween 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\u2019t in the world any more, and that\u2019s when I went, \u2018I wish there was these people in the world that were there to sit impartially and just provide solace and care.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSo that\u2019s part of my expansion and one of the things I will be learning,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n In September 2024, Kidman won the best actress award for her role in Babygirl at the Venice film festival, but missed the ceremony to be with family when her mother died. Her father, Antony, died in 2014.<\/p>\n Kidman isn\u2019t alone in Hollywood: the Oscar-winning director Chlo\u00e9 Zhao has also trained as a death doula, due to her fear of death.<\/p>\n