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Why famous people want to be death doulas

It’s part of a larger shift in how we think about mortality.

Nicole Kidman is getting a new job.

The actress already dominates TV and film, pulling in tens of millions of dollars a year for roles in hits like Nine Perfect Strangers and Babygirl. Her new gig is less glamorous, way less lucrative, and maybe more necessary: She’s training to be a death doula.

Death doulas, also called death companions, provide nonmedical care to dying people and their families, helping with everything from funeral arrangements to sitting with people at the end of their lives. It’s an increasingly necessary role, many who work in the industry say, in a time when a fragmented healthcare system and an increasingly individualistic culture leave people without support at the end of their lives.

“As my mother was passing, she was lonely, and there was only so much the family could provide,” Kidman said in an appearance earlier this month. “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.’”

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Death doulas are those people, and Kidman isn’t alone in her interest in becoming one of them. Chloé Zhao, the acclaimed director of Hamnet and other films, told the New York Times earlier this year that she had trained as a death doula to cope with her fear of mortality. A character serving as a death doula also appeared in a recent storyline on The Pitt.

People who work with the dying say it’s no surprise that celebrities want to learn more about guiding others through their final days. It’s part of a larger........

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