Actor George Clooney has slammed US President Donald Trump's criticism of Hollywood's stars as "liberal elites", calling the claim "ridiculous" coming from a real estate magnate born into wealth.

"Here's the thing: I grew up in Kentucky. I sold insurance door-to-door. I sold ladies' shoes. I worked at an all-night liquor store. I would buy suits that were too big and too long and cut the bottom of the pants off to make ties so I'd have a tie to go on job interviews," Clooney, 56, told the Daily Beast.

"The idea that I'm somehow the 'Hollywood elite' and this guy who takes a shit in a gold toilet is somehow the man of the people is laughable," he said.

The actor - who was promoting Suburbicon, his upcoming satire on race relations starring Matt Damon - said liberals in the entertainment industry, whom Trump regularly chastises as "coastal elites", largely hail from America's Midwest heartland and moved to Hollywood for their careers.