How do you do it without looking at the floor? Excellent peripheral vision?

Not that I know from film, but I do know from stage work and street improv that after enough years you just get a sense of the geography of the playing space -- you don't need to scrutinize everything and map it out anymore, your body just remembers where the sightlines are, knows who in the audience and who in the scene can see you and hear you and who can't, instantly recognizes the different feel of light or shadow on your face. Same way a major league batter can make the decision to swing or not in the 1/3 of a second when the ball is actually in hitting range. After enough years doing it, it's just muscle memory.

But before the muscle memory kicks in, lots of floor-looking and rote memorization.

instantly recognizes the different feel of light or shadow on your face.

This can be a huge problem for the lighting folks. When we put on The Dollhouse at the UW, the lead actress disliked direct light in the face. She had a nasty habit, after focus was done, of not hitting her mark during performance. They would refocus and it would happen again. They practically had to chase her around the stage to get her lit.

When we put on The Dollhouse at the UW, the lead actress disliked direct light in the face.

Oh, that must have driven you batshit! Possibly she should have reconsidered her choice of major, or at least gone into voice work so she could spend all her time in a dark little booth.

"Always hits his/her mark" may be faint praise, but it's still praise -- consistently being where you need to be, when they need you, without making a fuss about it, makes everything so infinitely easier for all those other people who are also doing this for a living, and usually sweating to meet deadlines and budgets and working under approximately a billion other urgent constraints.

"Always hits his/her mark" may be faint praise

I've always assumed it was shorthand for a certain level of professionalism, and not a literal "Wow, s/he's really good at counting steps!" which would be kind of backhanded.

lead actress disliked direct light in the face.

Da-buh? Weird.

Though I've worked with more than my fair share of actors who can't ever seem to find their light. Light is hot & bright. I don't know how they can fail to find it, but they do. There's been times when I've thought it would be easier to just have a million spotlights following everyone around.

I'm with Jessica-- I assumed that the actor would be both both literally hitting their marks and hitting their marks in knowing their lines, delivering a consistant performance, etc...

I was more addressing Betsy's question about hitting one's mark as being the minimally polite compliment from one actor-person to another -- even if it's minimal praise compared to "So brilliant I would hack off my own left arm and eat it for the chance to work with her/him again," it's still praise, and it carries with it a whole lot of unspoken assumptions about professionalism, respect for one's co-workers and the ensemble nature of the work, etc.

Light is hot & bright. I don't know how they can fail to find it, but they do.

It's totally baffling.

Oh, don't i know it. I stage managed for some time, and I had an actor who couldn't find his light. I finally had him stand on the mark with the light out, then turned the light on, so that he could feel the difference. he looked surprised when it was warmer and brighter.

I worked lights on a show where the lead actress gave her best possible secret agent impression, ducking from shadow to shadow. Pity she was in a 1776 rip-off at the time.

So we're in agreement with JZ and all is right with the world.

Also, I have worked with those light avoiding actor beasts, and it puzzles me.