Gabriella Wilde started training as a death doula while filming Poldark, after losing her sister.
Gabriella Wilde started training as a death doula while filming Poldark.
The 37-year-old actress – who is known for her roles in Wonder Woman 1984, Doctor Who and Poldark – revealed she took the unexpected career path because she is “aware of how little we talk about” death.
Speaking on This Morning, she said: “I started training [at night] while I was still on Poldark [which she starred on from 2016 to 2019].
“And actually, my training started when I started training in psychotherapy, and quite quickly became interested in our relationship with grief, and then our relationship with mortality itself. And [I] quite quickly became aware of how little we talk about it.
“And through doing that work, I found that it not only was changing my understanding of death and dying and grief, but also my relationship with my own life, and how I live, and it became something that really changed me.”
Gabriella explained that she believes speaking more openly about death and dying helps people and families feel “less isolated”.
She went on: “I think I learned very quickly that it’s just about being there and showing up. There’s a process that’s happening that no one’s really in control of, so it’s just about providing some calm gentle support for the family or for the person, and it can be as simple as being there and just holding their hand so that they’re not alone.”
Gabriella previously revealed her role as a death doula was inspired by losing her older sister two years ago and her own health scare, where she was misdiagnosed with cancer.
She told The Times: “[It] was the first time I was really confronted with the question of ‘Where is she?’ She was so present in my life it was like, ‘I can’t ring her, and where is she now?’
“There was a clarity and a simplicity that very quickly set into our life. I was considering very acutely and clearly what matters and what doesn’t, that was quite precious.”
Death doula Gabriella Wilde
