Robert Irwin ‘stoked’ by Chris Hemsworth's tribute to his late father

After Aussie star Chris Hemsworth recently shared a home video showing how he pretended to be Steve Irwin for a school project, Robert Irwin revealed what his dad would have thought.

Robert Irwin says his dad would have been “stoked” to see Chris Hemsworth’s impression of the late conservationist.

Hemsworth recently shared an Instagram video of his younger self pretending to be Steve Irwin, complete with khaki uniform.

“My first self-appointed, unofficial acting gig,” the actor captioned the post. “I drew inspiration from one of my heroes, the crocodile hunter himself. Thanks for getting me my highest grade ever in school, a C-.”

Hemsworth was then seen showing the home movie to his dad, who is suffering from Alzheimer’s, for his new National Geographic show A Road Trip to Remember.

“I reckon Dad would’ve been stoked,” Irwin wrote in Hemsworth’s comment section.

Hemsworth has opened up about his family’s journey with reminiscence therapy, which uses memories to help strengthen the neural connections in the brain, to help his 71-year-old father Craig with his cognitive abilities.

In Hemsworth’s new Nat Geo documentary, Chris Hemsworth: A Roadtrip to Remember, the star and the filmmakers recreated the interiors of the house in Melbourne where he grew up with parents Craig and Leonie and his actor siblings Liam and Luke.

Chris Hemsworth and his father Craig at a special screening of Chris Hemsworth: A Roadtrip to Remember. Picture: Luke Marsden

Dr Suraj Samtani, a clinical psychologist at the Centre for Healthy Brain Ageing at UNSW Sydney, who consulted on the documentary, told PEOPLE that connections between neurons were strengthened every time a person re-accessed a memory.

“It’s similar to adding more roads going into a suburb. You have more options to get to that suburb, and next time you want to go there, if one road is blocked, you can take another road.

The Hemsworths: Liam, Leonie, Chris, Craig and Luke. Picture: Luke Marsden

“Recreating the house in the outskirts of Melbourne was just such a key opportunity.
“Usually we use albums and songs, but to recreate an entire house like that is unbelievable. It’s like reminiscence therapy to the max.”

In one scene, Craig Hemsworth is having difficulty remembering previous conversations and at one point repeatedly asks his movie star son when his wife, Leonie, is coming to the recreated house.

In a scene from his new doco, Chris Hemsworth holds a Polaroid of him and his father, Craig, who was recently diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. Picture: Disney + / National Geographic

In the doco, Chris is visibly worried by his dad’s repetitive questions and said it was the first time his father has displayed real symptoms of Alzheimer’s.

As the reminiscence therapy continues, Chris takes his dad on a motorcycle road trip to the Northern Territory to meet with an old friend who Craig used to wrangle wild bulls with. 

As the road trip continues, Craig’s memories start to come back.

“It was really effective,” Dr Samtani told PEOPLE.

“I saw him initially being really reserved, really unsure where he was, what was going on. And by the end, as you can see in the documentary, he’s laughing, he’s smiling, he’s remembering all these key memories from his past, and he’s really confident.

“I think that for us was a success to get him out of his shell and feeling more like himself.”

Dr Samtani said it was important for people to understand that Alzheimer’s disease is not an “end-of-life sentence”.

“It’s possible to live well with dementia and Alzheimer’s, and it’s really possible to do all the things you enjoy and be physically, mentally and socially active — and that will actually slow down the rate of cognitive decline,” he said. 

Originally published as Robert Irwin ‘stoked’ by Chris Hemsworth's tribute to his late father