Most actors can hold a steady gaze and eye contact during a close-in conversation scene, but I've noticed a few actors who should be looking into the eyes of the person they're talking to but instead their eyes move back and forth, left to right, continually during the scene. I'm curious if anyone with insight into acting knows why that is.
Some theories include script recall (the eye movement is involuntarily acting out the "reading" of a memorized script page), focal length (the close-in shots are ridiculously close and the eyes are jumping from eye to eye of the other performer in order to maintain contact), nerves (again the close in scenes are uncomfortably close), bad habit (they could maintain eye contact if they wanted but are speaking dialog on auto-pilot as their eyes rove around)... etc
So anyone know why some actor's eyes twitch back and forth during close-in dialog scenes?
Some theories include script recall (the eye movement is involuntarily acting out the "reading" of a memorized script page), focal length (the close-in shots are ridiculously close and the eyes are jumping from eye to eye of the other performer in order to maintain contact), nerves (again the close in scenes are uncomfortably close), bad habit (they could maintain eye contact if they wanted but are speaking dialog on auto-pilot as their eyes rove around)... etc
So anyone know why some actor's eyes twitch back and forth during close-in dialog scenes?