For Mr. Hoffman there is little reassurance to be drawn from his best actor Oscar in 2006 for “Capote,” or from the years of reviews hailing him as one of the best actors of his generation. He says he wants to feel as human and exposed as possible each time he steps in front of the audience. And the pressure he puts on himself has not eased with the approach of Thursday’s opening night.

“I tell you, it’s not the first thing that you want to do when you wake up in the morning,” Mr. Hoffman said of becoming Willy. “You have to find your way there, every morning, to do that. You have to find the reason why, and you have to find the will to do it, and then you do. And then you’re reminded why you do, because you finish and — whether it went well or not — you hope that some people will find it satisfying and memorable.”

Few actors talk openly about how they get their arms around a character, and Mr. Hoffman had not even ordered his food before he politely rebuffed a discussion of his process. After all, he said, “you’re working and finding the performance until the very last show.” Besides, he said, taking on Willy at this point in his career was not his idea but that of Mike Nichols, who is directing the revival. Mr. Nichols sought him out a couple of years ago, and both said that Mr. Hoffman reacted to the prospect with a mixture of excitement and dread. Young men have played the 60-year-old salesman before; Lee J. Cobb was 37 when he opened on Broadway in 1949 as the original Willy in Arthur Miller’s play, which won the Pulitzer Prize and the Tony Award for best play. But Mr. Hoffman said he had thought it would be some years before he wanted to tackle the part.