Hollywood star Nicole Kidman has revealed a completely different role she is preparing for off-screen, inspired by the death of her mother.

The 58-year-old Australian actress noted the idea “may sound a little weird”, but she was training to become a death doula.

She was motivated to help support people and their loved ones during their final days after the death of her mother, Janelle Ann Kidman, in September 2024 aged 84.

“As my mother was passing, she was lonely, and there was only so much the family could provide,” Kidman told a Silk Speaker Series talk at the University of San Francisco on Saturday (US time), 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.

“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.”

Nicole Kidman with her sister Antonia and their mother Janelle. Photo: Instagram

The Babygirl actress isn’t the only famous face to reveal plans to be a death doula.

In 2021, actress Riley Keough revealed she had undergone training and found supporting others proved to be helpful with her own grief after her brother Benjamin Keough took his own life in July 2020.

“That’s really what’s helped me, being able to put myself in a position of service. If I can help other people, maybe I can find some way to help myself,” the Daisy Jones and the Six star — whose mother Lisa Marie Presley died in January 2023, aged 54 — said.

Kidman was on her way to Italy to accept an award at the Venice International Film Festival when her mother died in 2024.

She landed in Italy, only to quickly reroute for the long flight home to be with her extended family in Sydney.

“My sister and I, along with our family, want to thank you for the outpouring of love and kindness we have felt this week,” Kidman wrote in an Instagram post accompanied by photos of her, her sister Antonia and their mother.

“Every message we have received from those who loved and admired our mother has meant more to us than we will ever be able to express. Thank you from our whole family for respecting our privacy as we take care of each other.”

On what would have been her mother’s birthday in March last year, Kidman reflected on no longer having any living parents.

“Missing mumma and papa so much on what would have been her birthday today,” she wrote to her 10.5 million Instagram followers as she shared an old photo of her parents.

Her father Antony died in 2014 after a fall at a hotel in Singapore. The 75-year-old’s cause of death was later ruled as a heart attack.

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-with AAP