Did You Know Bindi Irwin Is Starring In Free Willy 4?

As someone who fancies themselves as quite the expert when it comes to Bindi Irwin (I can imitate her rap on Trouble In The Jungle fairly well, if that counts for anything), I am shocked and appalled that I’ve only just discovered Bindi is starring in the much anticipated fourth instalment of the Free Willy franchise.

With her hair shorter and sporting a tan, she’s looking a lot more grown up than the pig-tailed 10-year-old poppet who usually dances with her Crocmen at Australia Zoo on the Sunshine Coast. Playing the lead role of Kirra Cooper in her first full-length movie – Free Willy 4, this is Bindi like her fans have never seen her.

Sedated?

Still, it sounds as though Free Willy 4 may end up Bindi’s very own Whale Rider, with co-star Beau Bridges talking her acting skills up to the point where I’m almost 100% certain she’s a shoe-in for an Oscar nomination next year!

Her acting skills have been described as formidable by the movie’s writer and director Will Geiger and they are sentiments echoed by her co-star, veteran actor Beau Bridges. Bridges said he and his family had been huge Crocodile Hunter fans and then fans of Bindi’s Jungle Girl show. “She’s been teaching me a few things too,” he said. “I hesitate to talk too openly about her skills because she’d get a swollen head and she’s got to wear hats in the movie,” he told theCourier Mail.

Oh Beau, you wit.

Check out the moving storyline for the film, why don’t you?

Being shot in Cape Town, the movie fast forwards from 1997’s Free Willy 3 and tells the story of a young Australian girl (Kirra) whose mother died when she was four and who is sent to live with her grandfather Gus Grisby (Bridges) in South Africa. Gus owns a rundown beachside amusement park and when a baby Orca gets washed ashore, there is conflict over whether the little whale should be kept as an attraction or rehabilitated and sent back to his pod.

I’m already welling up with tears over here, people. Both over the premise of the movie, and the fact that I’ll never get to see this on the big screen as it’s going straight to DVD.

MORE: Crocodile Hunter legacy grows as Bindi Irwin debuts in Free Willy 4