Robert De Niro was once denied access to a hotel as staff thought he was a homeless man.

The actor stars in Being Flynn alongside Julianne Moore and Paul Dano. Robert portrays Jonathan a father who is disconnected from his family and is homeless.

Robert is famed for immersing himself in his various film roles, and while on a break from filming - and still in costume - the Hollywood veteran was turned away from the up-market hotel he was staying at.

"I didn't blame the security," he smiled in an interview with NBC Today. "They didn't want me in. I said, 'I wouldn't want somebody like myself in.'"

Robert didn't instantly understand the plight of his troubled character Jonathan. However, the 68-year-old star managed to get under the skin of him and act out the part convincingly.

"The father is kind of a guy that in some ways I don't understand because he's totally abandoned, in a sense, and self-involved and he becomes homeless eventually," he explained in the interview.

"To me he's somebody who's been avoiding his whole life what he wants to do."