‘It’s hard getting inside this guy for a lot of reasons, Mr. Hoffman said. (Not once during the interview did he utter the name Willy.)… Certain moments make sense, then they don’t, then others do, then they don’t anymore. All of a sudden you’ve lost what you found– you thought you knew what that moment in a scene was about, and then you don’t anymore. And then you do.’

‘You go into any role asking a question, accumulating half-answers, partial answers, full answers, and then different questions come to you– and through it all you have to trust your instincts, which is a private process.’

— Philip Seymour Hoffman, about playing the role of Willy Loman (“Searching for the Life of a Salesman” by Patrick Healy, The New York Times, Sunday, March 11, 2012)