Actress Mindy Kaling announced her “Scooby-Doo” Velma character is South Asian and made it clear she didn’t “care” if “people freak out” about the animated mystery hunter no longer being a white character.
During the Warner Bros. Discovery Upfront presentation Wednesday, the 42-year-old star and executive producer of the upcoming adult animated series, titled “Velma,” showed the audience an image of her character who is now South Asian, reported Entertainment Weekly.
Kaling’s solo-series is reimagined from the popular 1969 cartoon “Scooby-Doo.” On the show, it was Velma who was often the one who solved the mysteries and was definitely seen as the brains behind the rag-tag crew of kids that worked together to solve crazy mysteries, which consisted of Velma Dinkley, Fred Jones, Daphne Blake, Shaggy Rogers, and their pup Scooby-Doo.
"Hopefully you noticed my Velma is South Asian," the star and producer said at the Warner Bros. Discovery Upfront presentation Wednesday. "If people freak out about that, I don't care." https://t.co/dQT1J4CVpE
— Entertainment Weekly (@EW) May 18, 2022
The new show will not be that, and is being sold as a 10-episode adult animated series that will run on HBO Max. After Kaling introduced her character, she made a point to note what was different about her Velma.
“If a dog can solve crimes,” Kaling shared, then her Velma “can be brown,” reported Deadline.
“Hopefully you noticed my Velma is South Asian,” “The Mindy Project” star told the crowd. “If people freak out about that, I don’t care.”
Along with Kaling revealing her character, the actress also shared a NSFW image of the upcoming animated series that shows a character with some of their head missing and an animated person topless with the rest of their body covered in what appears to be bubbles.
Last year, the streaming service announced the project it described it as “an original and humorous spin that unmasks the complex and colorful past of one of America’s most beloved mystery solvers.”
At the time, WarnerMedia’s Tom Ascheim, president of Warner Bros. Global Kids, Young Adults and Classics, revealed it’s not for kids.
“Not for children, but we have a Mindy Kaling project called ‘Velma’ because she was excited to re-imagine what Scooby-Doo would be like if Velma were of East Asian descent and lived in a different world,” Ascheim shared.
“There’s no dog, and there’s no van, but we have our four key characters through a different lens,” Ascheim added, referring to Shaggy, Velma, Daphne, Fred.
Related: Mindy Kaling’s ‘Velma’ Will Be East Asian, Series Won’t Have Scooby Doo