Once an actor had learned the technique so well that he could forget what he was doing, he was freed to ‘think’ or ‘behave‘ the part. ‘You’ve got to be a technician to forget it all, so you do the acting on top of it,’ he stressed. (Wiedenman, 54) Rehearsal was only good for going through the technicalities of a scene but not for using his ‘actor’s energy’, true for example in a technical scene for The Servant:

‘I hate rehearsals unless it’s something technically complicated, such as in The Servant, where I had something like forty-one camera changes to make while laying and unlaying a dinner table. Then I do want to know exactly where my props are so it all happens on cue. I always insist on a technical rehearsal, when no emotion is happening, just saying the line. The crew have to know what you are doing and sound has to know that you may turn your head as you say a line, but you don’t put the guns in until the red light is on.’ (McFarlane, 69)