Bindi Irwin combines two of her late father's passions in her movie debut, Free Willy 4: Escape From Pirate's Cove: animal conservation and acting.
"I've always watched his Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course movie and I've always wanted to be in a movie and follow in his footsteps and so I'm glad that I got to do my first movie and it was about animals as well, just like he did," she said on a recent promotional tour for the film in Washington, D.C.
"And he also taught me so much when we were filming documentaries, he taught me, um, so much I could use in this movie, like how to work under hard circumstances, and it was good to apply that to the movie, so I'm glad that he taught me that and I got to use it on the film."
Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin was killed by a stingray in 2006. Bindi remembers her dad felt the golden rule applied to animals as well as humans.
"My dad has always taught me since the day I was hatched to love animals and to treat them how you would like to be treated," she said.
"A lot of people think of conservation and they think of woodland creatures, but ultimately it's about us. And so, I'm glad that in this movie I got to get this message across.
“And there's actually no animals that I find, that I'm scared of. I really do love everything."
Actually, there was one thing that scared her even before she started filming.
"The funny thing is, the thing that I got most nervous about was getting my hair cut. They said, oh, we have to cut your hair for a different hairstyle and I had nightmares before they did it. So they cut it and I loved it and I've kept it ever since, but it was very funny because that was the most nervous I ever got on the film."
It didn't take Bindi long to realize that making movies is a lot different from the documentaries she filmed with her dad.
"It was all very new and different and I loved it a lot," she said. "I know when you're filming the scene, it's not just one take like our documentary films, I mean, with that, you can't stay til you get the elephant to charge again, but with movies all the animals are trained to be able to do a lot of takes. It was a lot of fun and I really found Beau Bridges a great help, I mean, he's an incredible teacher and accomplished actor. I really, really look up to him."
Bindi is almost 12. She hopes to be in the business as long as Bridges, who made his acting debut at the age of 7.
"I hope that I can do a lot more movies. I really, really do. It was so much fun," she said. "I enjoyed the whole process of it, and being someone who I wasn't, so I really hope that I can do that again."
Bindi reassures parents that she was never in danger riding on the back of the orca. Unlike the trainer who was killed by a whale at SeaWorld last month, Bindi worked with an animatronic whale.
Free Willy 4: Escape From Pirate's Cove premieres on DVD March 23.
APTN