In Cannes on Sunday, Robert De Niro couldn’t help but poke fun at Donald Trump, saying his character in the new picture embodied the same kind of “evil” as the former president.
Martin Scorsese’s epic ‘Killers of the Flower Moon,’ which premiered to tremendous reviews at the Cannes Film Festival on Saturday, stars the famous actor, 79, alongside Leonardo DiCaprio.
He portrays William Hale, a real-life dignitary from 1920s rural America who cultivated confidence with local Osage Indians before orchestrating dozens of killings to grab their oil-rich property.
“I don’t understand a lot about him — why he betrays them,” De Niro admitted to reporters in Cannes.
“But we became a lot more aware after the murder of George Floyd with systemic racism and that’s what this is,” he said, referring to the police killing that sparked the Black Lives Matter protests.
“It’s the banality of evil, it’s the thing we’ve got to watch out for. We all know who I’m going to talk about — I won’t say his name,” De Niro continued.
But a few moments later, the long-time Trump-hater couldn’t hold back.
“It’s like with Trump — I had to say it,” he said to laughter from the reporters. “There are people who think he could do a good job. Imagine how insane that is.”
DiCaprio has gotten a lot of praise for his portrayal of a weak-willed man divided between his love for his Osage Indian wife and the nefarious plot in which he becomes involved.
