“Any actor worth their weight is a character actor”: Why Margo Martindale loves her Hollywood label

Margo Martindale, the three-time Emmy Award winner, is so well-regarded for her acting that she plays an animated version of herself on “BoJack Horseman” where she is called “esteemed character actress Margo Martindale.” She has taken on indelible roles in prestige dramas from “Million Dollar Baby” to  “August: Osage County” to “Justified” and “The Americans, but what Martindale has never been, until now, is a leading lady.

In Prime Video’s new series, “The Sticky,” produced by Jason Blum and Jamie Lee Curtis, Martindale plays a maple syrup farmer named Ruth, who resorts to desperate measures when her livelihood is threatened. The show is loosely based on the Great Canadian Maple Syrup Heist with Martindale at the center of the stick-it-to-the-man adventure. “It’s fun to be No. 1 on the call sheet,” the 73-year-old Texas native said during our recent “Salon Talks” conversation. “Might be stepping up in the world. You never know, though,” she joked.

During a career in which she’s played icy murderesses and doting grandmas, Martindale says that Ruth is “different from anything I’ve done.” And as for that sometimes backhanded label of “character actress,” Martindale’s never minded it a bit. “I think that any actor worth their weight is a character actor,” she says. “That’s what acting is about to me.”

Watch my frank and entertaining “Salon Talks” with Martindale here, or read it below, to hear more about “The Sticky,” her “Hannah Montana” moment and the two acting dreams that are still on her bucket list.

The following conversation has been lightly edited for clarity and length.

You are the star of the new Amazon Prime series, “The Sticky.”

It’s kind of exciting, I have to say. Now, this sounds obnoxious, but it’s fun to be No. 1 on the call sheet. And I have help with my co-stars [Chris Diamantopoulos and Guillaume Cyr], they’re fantastic.

Is this your first time starring in something?

Yes, really, it is. I did do a short film for Alexander Payne called, “Paris, je t’aime,” and I was the only one in it, so I was the star of it. [Payne] said, “I’ve written a part for you. I’ve never written anything for anyone before, and all I can say is, will you come to Paris and do it?” And I said, “Yes.”

Tell me a little bit about the character you’re playing in the show.

She’s a maple syrup farmer. She’s at the end of her rope. She is broke and furious and is trying to keep her husband alive in the house and doesn’t have any money, and is mad as hell at the government for taking her syrup away and putting it in a warehouse. Not all of it, but some of it.

You got this role in an interesting way. This is not a role that was written for you.

It wasn’t written for me, no. I don’t know that it was written for anyone, but it was given to, and who they wanted for the part, was Jamie Lee Curtis, and she was unable to do it. 

I get a phone call one afternoon and she said, “Hello, my name is Jamie Lee Curtis. Look, I was going to do the show, but I can’t work out my schedule and I thought, ‘Who is like me that I could call to do this?'” And she said, “Of course, Margo Martindale.” In my head I go, “Margo Martindale is like Jamie Lee Curtis? I don’t know in what world that is.” But she said, “So, will you come and do it?” I said, “I’ll read it, yeah.” “No, you’ll do it, right?” I said, “Well, send me the script. I’m interested.” “You’ll do it.” I said, “I’ll probably do it, but I have to read it first.” Anyway, I’d never talked to her before or anything.

And now here you are in this really fun adventure that’s also about trying to stick it to the man. You get to do a lot of fun things in this.

It is trying to stick it to the man. It’s also extremely satisfying. I drive a tree through a town and I crash the tree into the office of the [maple syrup] association, my nemesis. It was physically demanding, and I did all the driving of that tree. I stood in the snow for hours. 

I was at the height of my rage when the [show] opens and then I go higher, but also I collapse and crash down when I’m out of steam. It was so fun and so different from anything I’ve done, really, even though [I played] a very strong woman, like a lot of women I’ve done. But it was a different emotional journey than I have had.

To be in the position where you’re leading the cast, were you thinking of other actors you’ve seen lead shows? 

Yes, I thought about all that, and about setting the tone of the group, knowing to be kind to everyone. Appreciating all the actors that are working on it, every single one. That’s the way it happened to me when I was the one person coming in for two scenes. That’s the hardest thing you can do because it’s not your home and you feel like an outsider. You can’t screw up. Being on a show that you have a home, it takes a lot of pressure off. People that are coming in and doing one episode, it’s really so much harder. So you’ve got to be nice to everyone.

You’re having a moment. You’ve reminded me lately of when Ruth Gordon won her first Oscar at about the same age you are.

Oh, [“Rosemary’s Baby.”] I loved her.

She was in her late-ish 60s, and when she won her first Academy Award she said, “This is so encouraging.” So I want to know, is this encouraging?

[Laughter.] It’s encouraging. Might be stepping up in the world. You never know, though. It’s a fickle world.

What does this mean to you in terms of now? Maybe you have more leverage and could do something like direct?

Oh, I wouldn’t have one bit of interest in that.

What do you want to do now that you’re the star?

Well, just what the next job is, and if it’s challenging enough to make it fun for me. That’s it.

The phrase “esteemed character actress” is deeply associated with you thanks to “BoJack Horseman.” When people say “character actress,” I imagine there are different meanings that that has in Hollywood.

People think of that very differently. I think that any actor worth their weight is a character actor because you are playing a character and trying to find a new person. Not you, a new person, you morph into somebody else. That’s what acting is about to me. But then you have movie stars, that’s a whole world that I don’t really know about.

You’ve been at this a long time, doing parts as a workman journeyman actor. You’ve said you were typecast for a while, and “Justified” changed that. What were you typecast as?

I did a lot of plays and a lot of Southern plays. I remember doing a play written by Jim McLure called “Laundry and Bourbon.” We premiered it at the McCarter Theater in Princeton, and it was wildly funny.

I looked up every theater in the United States that was doing that play in their rep season, and I called them directly and I said, “Look, I originated the role of Hattie and I would love to come to your theater and do it.” I got several bites and that got me into regional theater. And they said, “Well, if you come do that, would you do this play, too?” Which was great.

“Steel Magnolias” of course changed my career again. That’s how I got in the movies, because everybody in Hollywood came to see “Steel Magnolias,” which I did the original of. That’s how I got my first movie in 1989. 

All through the ’90s I did movies and then, really what changed the tone of what I was doing was “Million Dollar Baby,” because that’s the first bad person I’d played, really. Then I got another bad person, and then I got “Justified,” and that blew the roof off for me.

Are you typecast in a different way now? Do people say, “We want somebody who’s going to break fingers.”

Well, yeah, but I think that also people realized that I had an imagination that could make lots of different people. Instead of just the Southern gal, I could actually do accents and do other things, and it opened up a wholly different world for me. I could play Bella Abzug [in “Mrs. America”], for example.

You’re a New Yorker, you’ve lived here for 50 years now. How do you do it? What does it take? You live in a walk-up apartment?

I do. I think the city’s gone through many different phases. When I first came here, it was pimps on my block, and there was prostitution in that Upper West side. That changed when [Mayor Rudy] Giuliani came in. It changed the whole world of safety. This is the truth, because you felt like you could take your children out on the street. Then 9/11 happened and that brought everybody together in a way that was incredible. I find the survival instinct of New Yorkers incredible because they come together. Hopefully we’ll all come together again to make it better.

This is a polarizing moment we’re living through. “The Sticky” feels like a good respite from that. What is it about this show that you think speaks to us right now?

I think it’s extremely fun. I think it’s an escape. I think it’s quick, fast-paced, wacky, wild, touching, embracing, and I think you’re rooting for the bad guys.

And who doesn’t want to root for the bad guys? You’ve played a lot of bad guys I didn’t root for.

Well, you’re going to root for me in this one [Laughter.]

At this stage in your career where you’re having this moment, what is it that you want to do? Is there a role you haven’t yet played that you really want to play? Is there a genre you still haven’t tackled, or is there something you want to go back to?

I’d like to play somebody English. I’d like to also do a musical, but only singing one song. You’re not going to want me to sing more than one song. I do have a movie coming out, “The Twits,” based on Roald Dahl’s book. I’m playing Mrs. Twit, and I do sing David Byrne’s music in the movie.