In 'The Sticky,' Chris Diamantopoulos Serves Up Mayhem, Murder and a Maple Syrup Heist

Chris Diamantopoulos says his favorite maple syrup recipe is vanilla maple ice cream. Just combine six egg yolks, a quart of cream, a cap full of vanilla extract, a huge pinch of salt and a quarter cup of high-quality maple syrup. Then let an ice cream maker do its thing. "It's just insanely tasty," he assures me.

I'm going to trust that the Toronto-born actor, who calls himself a "good Canadian boy," knows what he's talking about, given that his home country produces over 70% of the world's supply of maple syrup. But I'm also pretty sure he's ready with the recipe given his starring role in an original, dark comedy caper on Prime Video based loosely on the Great Canadian Maple Syrup Heist (details of the $18 million theft earned the 2011 crime its own Wikipedia page).

The Sticky, which premieres Dec. 6, follows maple syrup farmer Ruth Landry (played with grit and grace by Margo Martindale) as she turns to crime when her farm is threatened by the unscrupulous head of the local syrup collective. She pairs up with a friend of the family, a quick-tempered but lowly Boston mobster named Mike (Diamantopoulos) who's looking for redemption and an under-appreciated, not-so-smart security guard named Remy with a get-rich-quick scheme involving Quebec's easy-to-access maple syrup surplus. It's literally liquid gold (or dark amber, to maple syrup aficionados.)

Another Boston mobster, a mercenary played by a super chill Jamie Lee Curtis, shows up unexpectedly and to the trio's annoyance, decides to take charge of the heist. The plot twists and the humor gets darker as mayhem ensues across six, action-packed, 30-minute episodes. It's a fast watch.

After laughing at the opening disclaimer, which tells us that "This is absolutely not the true story of The Great Canadian Maple Syrup Heist" --  I can't decide if Mike, a mafia debt collector who's been banished to Canada after he screws up at home, is a good guy trying to extricate himself from the ruthless gang who now owns him or an immoral crook. 

On the one hand, there's his willingness to commit murder with no remorse in order to see the heist through, though he's funnily inept. In one scene, Mike dashes through a snow-covered forest, slipping and sliding in slick-soled shoes. Later, he's back in the snowy forest, now wearing a comically bright red puffy coat, firing shots -- missing every time -- until he runs out of bullets and is ultimately taken down by his prey.

On the other hand, once we learn his backstory, he's a sort of an anti-hero who earnestly admits that the money from the stolen sap will buy him a new life -- which is what Ruth and Remy want, too.

Diamantopolous, who's played villains before including Russ Hanneman in the popular Max series Silicon Valley and mobster Sotto Voce in Netflix's Red Notice, is delighted by my uncertainty. "Listen, I'm not your shrink but I think this more about you -- I think you're having a hard time with feeling good about liking the larceny," he says with a laugh. 

But then he gets serious about the work. "I like the idea of my character starting out showing us a sort of a facade of who he thinks he wants us to think he is and then digressing and being torn down and showing us the deep-seated insecurity and the broken nature of his past," Diamantopolous says. "And I like that all of that happens and evolves over the course of six, half-hour episodes… It's madcap in many ways, it's over the top. But the characters are deathly serious about everything that's happening to them." 

In addition to having a chance to work with Martindale, Diamantopoulos says he was thrilled to work with Curtis, whose Comet Pictures helped produce the series along with Blumhouse Television, Megamix and Sphere Media. "I've been obsessed with Jamie Lee Curtis," he says. "A Fish Called Wanda was such a pivotal movie for me and it informed so many of the performances that I would go on to do. I loved that movie and I loved her in that movie."

I enjoyed The Sticky and recommend it because the writing is clever and the characters are well developed. Early reviews are also positive. The Financial Times describes it as an "offbeat, small-town tale of ambition, greed and desperation, chilly climes and chilling crimes, that plays a little like a Canadian cousin of Fargo." TVGuide.com says "The Sticky's cleverly plotted episodes -- each an exercise in escalating chaos -- fly by for reasons beyond their 30-minute running time, and though it plays at times like a miniseries designed to tell a complete story and call it a day, the season finale leaves the door wide open for more."

The season finale definitely suggests there's more to come for Ruth, Mike and Remy, and Diamantopolous said he's not ruling out another season. As for what's next, he tells me his dreams include diving into a character of someone infamous (or maybe not so infamous) from history and one day working with one of his favorite filmmakers, Paul Thomas Anderson. Also, "I haven't played a sort of prototypical leading man, a good guy, in a very, very long time, and I think my experience playing so many bent and broken characters over the years could be a really interesting, sort of background color to add. That could be fun."

After watching The Sticky, I'm ready to see him in a leading man role, which I will do while enjoying a large bowl of vanilla maple ice cream.