The Essentials List: ‘Oppenheimer’ star David Dastmalchian talks the inevitability of death and his essentials for life

In the world of celebrity endorsements, being the face of a casket company is very on-brand for “Oppenheimer” star David Dastmalchian, who plays Lester Billings in the 2023 film adaptation of Stephen King’s “The Boogeyman” and Wojchek in the Dracula flick “The Last Voyage of the Demeter.” In fact, the actor shares that he was immediately intrigued by the opportunity when his friend first approached him with the idea. “I’m definitely an actor and writer who has been associated with darkness and death and spooky things,” he says. “For my whole life, I’ve always loved and adored those things. The concept of memento mori is so powerful, and so I was like, ‘Fun. Awesome. Let’s meet!’”

Dastmalchian says that when he connected with the team at Titan Casket — the brand behind the casket Taylor Swift uses in her “Anti-Hero” music video — he immediately understood why they were so passionate about something that “seemed uncomfortably weird at first.”

“They saw the way in which a lot of the funeral industry was preying upon people in their time of loss,” he says. “And they were filling this void of affordable end-of-life memorial practices that were so wonderful.”

The realization that “this was really powerful and important,” he explains, is also when the partnership became more than just a fun opportunity. “It was still something that felt fun and kind of me, for lack of a better term, while at the same time, it gave me this really strong sense of pride in being able to tell people about an opportunity where they could memorialize a lost loved one without going into debt,” he says.

Through the partnership, the “Dark Knight” star has been working to normalize talking about what can otherwise be a very uncomfortable and difficult topic for a lot of people. Dastmalchian — who shares that he’s lost several loved ones, including both of his parents, in the last few years — has also been confronting his own feelings. “For me, ultimately starting to talk candidly about this subject once I started working with Titan opened the floodgates of normalizing the vulnerability and fear that comes with the experience of not only having to confront the fact that people I love are going to die but that I’m going to have to die,” he says.

Outside his work with the brand, the actor — who is set to star in the Apple TV+ series “Murderbot” — has been busy. With the massive success of “Oppenheimer,” he’s been flitting from red carpet to red carpet. He’s also been immersed in writing sessions; he’s currently working on a number of different comic books, including “Count Crowley.” And as a dad of two, Dastmalchian says he’s been learning how to care for his daughter’s new pet lizard and learning how to keep up with his son on Roblox.

Below, Dastmalchian shares some of his everyday essentials, which include his go-to SPF and the luxe candle he lights to unwind, with CNN Underscored.