Edward Norton on Moonrise Kingdom, interview Moonrise Kingdom has the feel of a fable. It is set in 1965, on New Penzance, a small fictional island just off the coast of New England and accessible to the mainland only by ferry. In this closed-off society, Sam and Suzy, a boy and girl both aged 12, react to the widespread disapproval of their unlikely romance by eloping and finding a secret spot of their own on the island. Their disappearance causes panic - especially as a violent storm is known to be a couple of days away - and the adults in the community band together to find them. Norton's scoutmaster also presses his young troop into the rescue mission, gravely telling them: "This is not a search party. It's a chance to do some first-class scouting. The film was shot last summer, largely on an island off the coast of Newport, Rhode Island. "It was like summer vacation, and totally great," says Norton. I think Wes is like a camp counsellor. When he makes his films, he plans the activities for the day and says: 'This is what we're going to do. Everyone got into costume at home and did their own hair and make-up. It was a bit like being in a summer theatre group. Anderson's films are hard to pin down. Critics use words such as "quirky," "whimsical," "melancholic" and "neurotic," without capturing the artifice of the self-contained worlds he creates: worlds that look almost, but not quite like our own. Norton, for his part, thinks Anderson is misunderstood. "I've heard people describe his films as ironic," he says. But they are the exact opposite of ironic. His characters are so painfully over-sincere they're lovable - and funny. He agrees that setting the story in 1965 allowed him to play scoutmaster Ward perfectly straight-faced: "It's hard to imagine someone being invested in the Boy Scouts in that way now," he says. If it were today, there'd be some irony in it. But that time was more innocent. I think the effect of Wes's films gives people the illusion that acting in them is different. But the truth is, it's the same - playing a dramatic character. In Moonrise Kingdom, my character is deadly serious - but what he's serious about is leading a Boy Scout troop. It's the juxtaposition that's funny. Norton sees depths below the surface of Anderson's amusing fairy tale. "I think the adults in the film are less in touch with their emotions than the children at the beginning of the story," he says. They're having problems because they're unhappy. Maybe my character is an exception, but I think the adults in the movie wake up because of what the children do. Wes has tapped into the way that when you're that age [12 years old] your emotional life is filled up by things like books and your first crush. Your whole world revolves around fantasies, because you've got freedom, time and relative lack of responsibility. I think he captures that really nicely. Moonrise Kingdom is the first of two major films for Norton this year. In August, he will be seen co-starring with Jeremy Renner in The Bourne Legacy, the latest of the Bourne franchise, but with new characters. Yet, in the past few years, Norton has appeared in fewer film roles. As he points out, he's been pursuing other interests. "I didn't make a film in 2010 because I was writing an HBO miniseries [about explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark]," he says. And I chaired a campaign for a big new theatre in New York, the largest new theatre there since the Lincoln Center. It's a three-theatre complex, designed by Frank Gehry, right on 42nd Street. Norton is also a committed social activist, sitting on the board of a non-profit organisation for affordable housing and as the American president of an African wilderness conservation trust. Still, he's relaxed if these activities take him away from films for a while. "It's better for people to miss you than to have seen too much of you," he says. It's easier to show up in a Boy Scout uniform in a film and for people to go with it if they weren't looking at you five minutes ago in something else. And is he likely to become a regular member of Anderson's repertory company? "Wes knows I'm on call," he says. And yeah, I'd love to do it again. Moonrise Kingdom is out now. See review