When Day-Lewis Met Samberg: Master Thespian and SNL Stooge Collide at Fancy Brasserie!

“The writers’ strike has had no visible effect on my Hanukkah,” said comedian Andy Samberg at Brasserie 8 1/2 on Monday, Dec. 10, during a party before the premiere of There Will Be Blood. He and Saturday Night Live colleagues Bill Hader, Rachel Dratch and Amy Poehler were all there in support of fellow cast member Maya Rudolph’s boyfriend, Paul Thomas Anderson, who directed the film. “My Hanukkah is par for the course. I mean, you know, lighting the candles and stealing things.”

Being new to Judaism, the Transom just nodded blankly.

“That’s the rule, right? You go out and steal something every night,” Mr. Samberg continued. “If you actually get arrested for stealing something on Hanukkah, if you can prove that you’re Jewish, you are not charged for it because it’s a religious thing.”

Ho-ho-ho.

In the movie, Daniel Day-Lewis plays a tortured oil tycoon who abandons his son. The great actor, clad in a plaid three-piece suit, professed himself personally unaffected by this grim subject matter: “If you’re dealing with areas of any kind of a soul that’s riven, torn, conflicted—there’s a certain liberating element, which may even give you a kind of lightness of spirit when you’re in your own home,” Mr. Day-Lewis said. “I’m fairly confident that whatever turmoil there is in the work itself is not something that then necessarily turns the house upside down.” Not when you’re married to a brainy gal like Rebecca Miller (who was nearby, hair up in Princess Leia-like buns, wearing a festive red blouse and green skirt combo)!

Co-star Paul Dano was also there—and excited for Chistmas! ”I’m 23 but I still get something that says it’s from Santa,” he said.