ELISSA NADWORNY, HOST:
Canada's most famous export, maple syrup, is liquid gold for the sugarmakers of Quebec. For three amateur crooks, millions of dollars of maple syrup sitting in a poorly guarded warehouse is a sweet opportunity.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "THE STICKY")
MARGO MARTINDALE: (As Ruth Clarke) If the syrup barrels Remy and his buddies stole are still there, the cops find them, they'll lock down the warehouse, and our whole operation is [expletive]. We do this, and we could steal syrup all night - 300 grand by tomorrow morning. Easy.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character) Easy.
NADWORNY: That's Margo Martindale, who plays Ruth Clarke, a maple farmer and one of the three masterminds behind this very Canadian heist on Amazon Prime Video's new show "The Sticky." Margo Martindale and Ed Herro, who created the show with Brian Donovan, join us now. Welcome.
MARTINDALE: Well, thank you.
ED HERRO: Thank you. Hello.
NADWORNY: So we have to begin by saying there was an actual maple syrup heist in Quebec back in 2011 and 2012. Thieves stole 18 million Canadian dollars' worth of maple syrup. But each episode of this show starts with a disclaimer saying, quote, "this is absolutely not the true story of the Great Canadian Maple Syrup Heist." Ed, how should viewers interpret the similarities between what actually happened and what happened in the show?
HERRO: Viewers should just disregard the whole real heist, because, as you said, it happened in 2011, 2012, but it was very methodical and quiet. Just every night, they'd steal a barrel of syrup or two and replace it with water. And then they did that for months, and then they get caught. And that would be horrible TV. So we took the headline, and that's where it ends, really. You know, we just had fun with it and tried to make the most heartbreakingly sad, but also funny, story we could.
NADWORNY: Sad and funny. I love that. But I want to ask Margo, your character, Ruth, she joins this plot because of her husband's coma. And she's facing financial ruin. She's, like, this conniving criminal, but she's also a loving family woman and kind of this, like, underdog fighting this unfair system. How do you prepare to play a character that's so nuanced like that?
MARTINDALE: She's a real person who is at the absolute end of a rope, as desperate as desperate can be. And she starts at a very high pitch, full of rage and full of sadness, and she's disheartened by everything in her life. You know, put all that, stick it all in your head and see where it comes out. That's kind of the way I prepare.
NADWORNY: What are the best parts about playing someone who's, like, trying to do some criminal/ violent things?
MARTINDALE: (Laughter) Well, the best part about it is that it should make for funny. For me, desperation in the right tone makes me laugh. You have to play it for real, completely real, and mix it up with these two nuts that I work out with, Chris Diamantopoulos and Guillaume Cyr. And let's see where that goes. Stick them all together, and they are stuck like maple syrup.
NADWORNY: Well, I want to talk about the world building of this show because it's, like, such a Canadian campy aesthetic.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "CES BOTTES SONT FAITES POUR MARCHER")
MUGUETTE: (Singing in French).
NADWORNY: The colors, the winter coats, the music, which is often, like, French covers of oldies.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "CES BOTTES SONT FAITES POUR MARCHER")
MUGUETTE: (Singing in French).
MARTINDALE: Oh, isn't it fabulous?
NADWORNY: It's so good. Ed, tell me about went into creating that. How did you manage that?
HERRO: Well, you know, both myself and Brian, the other creator, we're both American, and we don't know Canada as well as Canadians. And so we hired an all-Canadian writers room. We hired an all-Canadian crew, the directors. And we tried to say, open-door policy. If anything doesn't feel truly Canadian, authentically Canadian, especially authentically Quebec, tell us.
NADWORNY: Is there an example or a memory you have of, like, a moment where someone came up and said, oh, actually, it should be this way?
HERRO: Yeah. Our director, Michael Dowse, also Canadian, said, you're doing this whole series in Quebec, and there's not one strip club. And strip clubs are - they just populate the Quebec countryside, I guess. We said, that's a good point. Let's shoot this in a strip club. So we found a strip club and - Margo, you probably remember - we spent a couple of days in a real, authentic strip club.
MARTINDALE: Yes, we certainly did.
NADWORNY: An authentic strip club. I love it.
(LAUGHTER)
NADWORNY: So this series has humor and twists. You know, it's also kind of the story about people being disrespected, pushed around by people who have power over them. This push and pull between keeping the comedy and the suspense, how do you do that?
HERRO: It was a tough balance from the writing standpoint, at least. I can't speak to the acting side, but Brian and I come from a comedy background. We were - drilled into us every day when we're lucky enough to have a job is write a joke, like, every third sentence. So we actively kind of tried to stay away from that. We tried to lean into the reality of the world, the seriousness of the characters, the shattered desperation of each character. What we liked from the beginning of this concept was three totally different characters shoved together trying to achieve one shared goal but for three completely different reasons.
Often, paintings, art is actually the negative space is what makes it. So we're trying to give room to breathe and just have the absence of things make it feel more weighty. You know, give the seriousness time to land. You know, don't get me wrong. I love a hilarious bang-bang-bang comedy. You know, I grew up on them. I love them. But this style is, hopefully, much more somber and real and high-stakes and some sadness. And then when the jokes do come up, they hit even harder because you've been in this other world for so long.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "THE STICKY")
REMY BOUCHARD: (As Guillaume Cyr) I've been sneaking out barrels of maple syrup- one a month for three months - and no one's noticed.
NADWORNY: Ed, this kind of reminds me of kind of the frenetic energy in a scene where Ruth is dragging a tree behind her truck and kind of throws it into the building where the head of the organization that oversees the maple syrup farmers' offices.
HERRO: It was just - we wanted some of that bang-bang, surprise-you energy and then go back to, you know, the quiet again.
MARTINDALE: And let me just say something. I drove that truck.
HERRO: Yes, you did.
NADWORNY: Really? Oh, yeah. And how good did that feel?
MARTINDALE: Beyond satisfied.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "THE STICKY")
MARTINDALE: (As Ruth Clarke, yelling).
NADWORNY: Margo, you are one of the most well-known character actors in Hollywood. You won an Emmy for your work on the TV series "Justified," playing, actually, another criminal. Now you had the lead role in this series. What did you think when you first got offered the part of Ruth?
MARTINDALE: I thought it was just another great part, really. I thought, well, another great character to dive into. I didn't think about being the lead. I didn't think about being, you know - I didn't think of any of that. I just thought, that's a part I want to play.
NADWORNY: And I'll do as many scenes as I need to.
MARTINDALE: And a delight to be, you know, No. 1 on the call sheet for the first time at 73 years old. Hallelujah.
(LAUGHTER)
HERRO: Well deserved and well worth the wait.
NADWORNY: Thank you. Thank you, Ed.
NADWORNY: That's Margo Martindale, who stars in "The Sticky," a TV series now on Amazon Prime Video, and Ed Herro, the co-creator of the series. Thank you so much.
HERRO: Thank you.
MARTINDALE: Thank you very much.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
