Robert De Niro has accused Donald Trump of hampering the arts and claims his immigration policy might prevent "the next Chaplin" coming to Hollywood.

The 73-year-old Goodfellas actor was attending an awards ceremony in New York celebrating the work of silent film comic Charlie Chaplin when he took aim at the US president.

The Hollywood Reporter said he told the crowd the award's subject was "an immigrant who probably wouldn't pass today's 'extreme vetting'".

"I hope we're not keeping out the next Chaplin," De Niro added.

Image: Charlie Chaplin, pictured here in 1922, was famous for playing his comic tramp creation

Chaplin, who hailed from London and moved to Los Angeles in 1913, was later exiled from the US for supposedly supporting communism during the witch-hunts of the McCarthy era.


In the years following WWI, he became one of the biggest stars in the world, founded a film studio and made several films that are still ranked as among the greatest ever made.

President Trump's travel ban restricts immigration from six mainly-Muslim countries and halts admission of Syrian refugees into the US.

De Niro also said Mr Trump's administration was making "mean-spirited" cuts to arts programmes.

Image: In the 1910s, Chaplin was among the biggest stars in the world

He claimed the President's recent plan to scrap the National Endowment for the Arts, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the National Endowment for the Humanities, was for his administration's "own divisive political purposes".

The three agencies were eventually spared for the time being.

Others who attended the event included Meryl Streep, Martin Scorsese, Harvey Keitel, Michael Douglas, Ben Stiller and Sean Penn.

De Niro, who collected the 44th Film Society of Lincoln Centre's Chaplin Award, previously said he wanted to punch Mr Trump in the face as the Republican ran for office.