Though Nicole Kidman’s time on the silver screen is far from over, the Australian star has announced an unexpected career move – she is becoming a death doula.
The Academy Award-winning actress revealed her pivot while speaking at the University of San Francisco at the weekend. She said her decision was largely inspired by her profound grief following the death of her 84-year-old mother, Janelle Kidman, in September 2024.
“As my mother was passing, she was lonely, and there was only so much the family could provide,” Kidman said, per 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 any more, 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’.”
Kidman admitted her decision to become a death doula may sound “a little weird”, but said it was “part of her expansion” into the future.
Though the actress did not mention how this new role would impact her future time on-screen, she did note that “stamina”, which she believed to mean “taking care of [her] health and taking care of [her] mental health and being able to show up and give it [her] all and not ever coast,” was the most challenging part of her job.
Kidman has been particularly busy recently. Last year, she featured in the buzzy erotic thriller Babygirl and psychological thriller Holland. This year, she has dominated the small screen, appearing in Margo’s Got Money Troubles and Scarpetta, a mystery-thriller in which the actress faces death head-on as a forensic pathologist.
According to Go Gentle Australia, a national charity that works to promote choice at the end of life, death doulas provide non-medical assistance to healthcare or hospice care. They can provide emotional, spiritual and practical support to terminally ill people and their families.
Demand for death doulas has been increasing around the globe, including in Australia, alongside the growth in the “death-positive” movement. There has been an uptick in events designed to facilitate healthy and open conversations about death, including Melbourne’s The Death Salon which took place last month.
Kidman joins a string of other celebrities who have made surprising career moves, including Tom Selleck, who became an avocado farmer following his success in Magnum P.I., and Sixteen Candles star Michael Schoeffling, who opened up a woodworking shop. However, most of these shifts came after largely retiring from Hollywood, something Kidman has not suggested she’s doing.
Elsewhere in Kidman’s speech at the weekend, she mentioned her love of classic literature and said Stanley Kubrick, who directed her in Eyes Wide Shut, as one of the greatest teachers and mentors of her career. She did not, however, mention her recent divorce from musician Keith Urban, and also deftly avoided a joke made by the moderator about her ex-husband Tom Cruise’s height.
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Nell Geraets is a Culture reporter at The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via X or email.
