Christopher Abbott on What Sold Him on ‘Death of a Salesman’ Adaptation

Christopher Abbott at the 2026 Gotham TV Awards.

Christopher Abbott at the 2026 Gotham Awards. Theo Wargo/Getty Images

Christopher Abbott kicked off his week leading up to the 2026 Tony Awards with his first time presenting at an awards show at the 2026 Gotham TV Awards.

The actor seemed to have a zen-like approach to the busy days leading up to Broadway‘s big night, where Abbott is nominated for best performance by an actor in a featured role in a play, just one of nine nominations for the Death of a Salesman revival he stars in with Nathan Lane and Laurie Metcalf.

“There’s definitely been a bit of a push. There’s been more press stuff that we’ve all had to do, so on top of doing the show, we’re doing a lot of extra things,” he told The Hollywood Reporter on the Gotham TV Awards red carpet. “For me, it doesn’t change the show or how we do the show, it feels like another hump we’re sort of getting over, and then we don’t have to worry about the Tonys anymore. Being nominated is already icing.”

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The latest iteration of the Arthur Miller drama has received rave reviews for director Joe Mantello’s more abstract version, which features a different, more industrial setting than most adaptations.

Indeed, it was this “fresh take” that sold Abbott, who first broke out more than a decade ago on HBO’s Girls, on being part of the oft-revived production.

“One of the first things Joe said to me was, ‘Whatever this means to you, I really want to approach it like it’s a new play,'” Abbott recalled. “And that can mean a lot of things, but as if it’s a new script that we got, let go of any old baggage that comes with the play or how it’s meant to be done, just really have a fresh approach, top to bottom, design, how the scene should work, characters, whatever. It’s just having a really fresh take on it, and that’s what sold me.”

The Hollywood Reporter‘s David Rooney called Mantello’s Death of a Salesman “transfixing” and “magnificent theater.”

“While the production is open to interpretation, Mantello appears to have reimagined it as the rush of thoughts coursing through Willy’s mind in the moments before his death,” Rooney writes in his review of the Broadway play. “Happy memories sit alongside uneasy ones, stubbornly optimistic hope alongside crushing defeat, puffed up self-aggrandizement alongside abject failure and humiliation.”

And Rooney praises Abbott’s performance as Biff.

“Abbott is a terrific stage actor with a brooding, unpredictable presence,” he writes. “He makes us feel Biff’s agony as a young man drawn to working outdoors with his hands, struggling under the weight of his father’s undying expectations.”