Wes Anderson says lockdown helped inspire ‘Asteroid City’

Wes Anderson's new film puts Westerns, theatre, 1950s Americana and an alien into a blender for another of his atypical and star-packed concoctions that he says is about "reckoning with forces beyond your control".

As always, "Asteroid City," which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival on May 23, features a roster of actors that reads like a Hollywood phonebook.  

Tom Hanks, Steve Carell and Margot Robbie, newcomers to the Anderson family, join past collaborators Scarlett Johansson and Edward Norton and regulars like Adrien Brody, Jason Schwartzman and Tilda Swinton in the film.

The one-of-a-kind director never seems too influenced by events in the real world, but he told AFP the COVID-19 pandemic did have an impact. 

"This movie is certainly informed by the most bizarre viral moment in recent history," he said.

"Writing it during this pandemic, in the middle of the most locked-down lockdown, we were not sure we would ever go out again - so I think that's sorta in it.

"Asteroid City" is a bizarre and knotty tale set in a remote desert town where a group of child geniuses are gathered for a science competition that is interrupted by an alien visitor, leaving them locked up in quarantine. 

But in typically convoluted Anderson form, the desert story is presented as a play being performed in New York.

Anderson says he wanted to pay homage to actors, who remain something of a mystery to him, even after working with the biggest names in the business. 

"Many of the actors are my friends now, but nevertheless they are different on set," Anderson said. 

"Actors recognize something in each other that normal people don't go through - this thing of being the one who everyone is going to watch. It has this...