Margo Martindale ‘howled with laughter’ when learning of maple syrup heist that inspired ‘The Sticky’

By Alli Rosenbloom, CNN

(CNN) — When Margo Martindale signed on to star in Prime Video’s new dark comedy series “The Sticky,” out Friday, she did not realize just how dramatic maple syrup could be.

In fact, the “Cocaine Bear” star told CNN in a recent interview that when she learned that the Jamie Lee Curtis-produced series was inspired by a real-life heist from 2012 – one which involved the theft of $20 million worth of maple syrup from a Quebecois warehouse – Martindale at first found it hilarious.

“I knew, honestly, almost nothing about maple syrup and I certainly didn’t know about the heist,” Martindale said. “When I found out that the heist was a real thing, I howled with laughter. That’s wild!”

So when Curtis personally called Martindale and asked her to sign onto the series in the lead role, she had to say yes.

“She was incredibly supportive in all of the beginnings of everything. She loves to give gifts. She loves to play. She’s a smart, strong force of nature,” Martindale said of Curtis, who also makes a wacky guest appearance in one delightfully chaotic episode.

“The Sticky” veers a bit from the actual 2012 incident, which is made clear through a cheeky disclaimer at the start of each 30-minute episode that the show is “absolutely not the true story of the Great Canadian Maple Syrup Heist.”

The six-episode series centers around Martindale’s character Ruth, a gritty maple syrup farmer in Quebec who is on the brink of losing her farm and has found herself at odds with the greedy head of the Association (the series’ fictionalized version of the Federation of Quebec Maple Syrup Producers, a government-regulated organization) while she cares for her ailing, coma-bound husband.

She teams up with Remy, a dopey security guard (Guillaume Cyr), and American wannabe mobster Mike (Chris Diamantopoulos) to drain the Association’s maple syrup reserve in a high-stakes heist.

But Martindale doesn’t look at Ruth and her cohorts as criminals.

“We’re only committing a crime because we’ve been pushed to the limit,” she said of her character’s predicament. “We’re committing a crime for the good of our families.”

As the true tale of what’s been dubbed the “Great Canadian Maple Syrup Heist” goes, around 3,000 tons of maple syrup were slowly and quietly siphoned, barrel by barrel, from the Federation of Quebec Maple Syrup Producers’ warehouse of reserves, Quebec police said in a statement at the time.

As much as 80% of the world’s maple syrup comes from the region, according to the Federation, which manages the world’s only strategic maple syrup reserve.

The theft was discovered during a routine inventory check of the warehouse when officials realized that a significant amount of barrels originally containing the syrup were empty, concluding that it had been transferred to other containers during the heist.

According to the Guardian, Quebec police arrested 16 people in connection with the crime at the time. Ringleader Richard Vallières, who intended to resell the stolen syrup in smaller batches for profit, was found guilty of fraud, trafficking and theft in 2016, and subsequently sentenced to eight years in prison.

Vallières was also ordered to pay a $9 million dollar fine, which he has a decade to pay off, otherwise he may face an additional six years in prison, according to CBC.

The incident was the subject of a 2018 episode of Netflix’s corporate greed and corruption docuseries “Dirty Money.”

“People wanted to sell more of their maple syrup. Why couldn’t they? It was because it was government regulated, that’s why,” Martindale said. “That was fascinating to learn.”

All six episodes of “The Sticky” are available to stream on Prime Video.

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