Oscar-winner Frances McDormand offered job in supermarket during the shoot

Hollywood star Frances McDormand said Friday she was offered a job in a supermarket as she was making her latest film.

"Nomadland", which is premiering both at the Venice and Toronto film festivals, is set among the growing tribe of impoverished elderly van dwellers who wander the West, clinging onto the last threads of the American Dream.

The double Oscar-winner plays a widow who is forced to take to the road after a mine closes, wiping her tiny community from the map.

McDormand said she was "offered employment" while she was walking around a Target store during the shoot.

"I was given a form to fill out if I wanted employment," she said.

The actress, who won Oscars for her performances in both "Fargo" and "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri", said he was chuffed.

"So I went back to Chloe (Zhao, the director), and said, 'It´s working.'"

Her character subsists on low-paid jobs to fund her life of the open road, and discovers a community of similar souls who help each other make the best of things.