Hollywood legend issues ominous warning: 'We’re living in the darkest moment'

Actor Richard Gere described how America was facing a dark time in history and called President Donald Trump a "maniac," according to reports on Wednesday.

Gere was speaking at the Oslo Freedom Forum in Norway with Thor Halvorssen, a Venezuelan-Norwegian human rights activist, and discussed politics, history and freedom, The Daily Beast reported. The actor, who has criticized Trump in the past, revealed a dark parallel between the current United States and the past.

"We’re living in the darkest moment that I’ve experienced on this planet," Gere told the audience.

“How is this even possible? Because we went to sleep. We didn’t care. We didn’t vote. We didn’t really listen,” Gere said.

He believes he also "didn’t do enough work to skillfully convince people around me, close to me, not close to me, that this was insane to elect this person as president of the United States."

And in his comments, Gere described how on the "first day, this guy dismantled almost everything that was good about the U.S. government and the U.S. people."

He warned that people must act — before it's too late.

“We have to see the cues, this dictatorship of the monsters, how quickly it happens," Gere said. "We have to be vigilant."

He referenced a trip to Dachau, a Nazi concentration camp in Germany, and what he walked away thinking about after the visit and seeing an exhibit that showed "the transformation of German society and German government and how quickly it happened there."

"Good people turned into monsters," said the Golden Globe-winning performer.

"But you see how quickly our world can be taken from us if we fall asleep. And we have to see the cues," he added, saying that people must be aware of how fast "this dictatorship of the monsters" can happen.

"We can’t sit back and go, ‘Ah, life is good. I’m fine. You know, I’ve got food. I got money. Blah blah blah. I got my house. I got another car. I’m thinking about this. I’m OK. I know he’s a bad guy, but it’s OK,'" Gere explained.

"But it’s not OK. It’s not OK. It’s never OK," he said.