Advertisement

Robert Downey Jr.'s touching reunion with Robert Irwin, son of late 'Crocodile Hunter' Steve Irwin

Robert Irwin talks to the media in the awards room during the 33rd Annual ARIA Awards 2019 at The Star on November 27, 2019 in Sydney, Australia. (Photo by Lisa Maree Williams/Getty Images)
Robert Irwin talks to the media in the awards room during the 33rd Annual ARIA Awards 2019 at The Star on November 27, 2019 in Sydney, Australia. (Photo by Lisa Maree Williams/Getty Images)

Robert Downey Jr. was a big fan of the day he and his son Indio spent with “Crocodile Hunter” Steve Irwin and Irwin’s own son, Robert, in July 2004.

“Me and my first born, Indio, literally will never forget it,” the Iron Man star said this week on Australia’s Today. Robert Irwin interviewed RDJ to promote the latter’s new movie, Dolittle, which co-stars many animated animals.

Downey Jr. told the young Irwin, who’s now 16, that he remembered their initial meeting “fondly.”

Read more: Bindi Irwin shares tribute to father Steve amid bushfire crisis: 'I wish he was here'

Irwin couldn’t say exactly the same, simply because he was too little back then.

“The last time I caught up with you, I was teething,” said Irwin, the younger brother of Bindi Irwin, who’s 21.

He explained that Downey Jr. had previously visited the Irwins at their zoo and animal sanctuary.

“I know my dad absolutely loved touring you around the zoo,” Irwin said of his father Steve. “That was one of the highlights of his life.”

The elder Irwin, a prominent animal expert who starred in his own documentaries and reality show, died in 2006. He was attacked by a stingray while snorkelling in shallow water, reportedly while filming footage for his daughter’s show, Bindi the Jungle Girl.

When the younger Irwin confessed that he’d never interviewed anyone before Downey Jr., the star quipped, “Sorry about your luck.”

True to his family’s form, Irwin focused on questions about animals and conservation, such as why Downey Jr. is starting the Footprint Coalition. It’s an organisation the actor has teased as one “committed to using advanced technologies for the good of the environment.”