‘Velma’: Constance Wu, Sam Richardson & Glenn Howerton Join Mindy Kaling As HBO Max Series Leads

Rosy Cordero
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The cast of HBO Max’s Velma was announced at New York Comic-Con on Thursday by series executive producer and star Mindy Kaling. Alongside Kaling, who portrays the titular character, the leads include Constance Wu (Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile) as Daphne, Sam Richardson (Ted Lasso) as Shaggy, and Glenn Howerton (It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia) as Fred.

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Rounding out the ensemble cast in unknown roles is Jane Lynch, Wanda Sykes, Russell Peters, Melissa Fumero, Stephen Root, Gary Cole, Ken Leung, Cherry Jones, Frank Welker, “Weird Al” Yankovic, Fortune Feimster, Yvonne Orji, Sarayu Blue, Nicole Byer, Ming-Na Wen, Shay Mitchell, Debby Ryan, Kulap Vilaysak, and Karl-Anthony Towns.

Velma is an adult animated comedy series telling the origin story of Velma Dinkley, the unsung and underappreciated brains of the Mystery Inc. gang from Scooby-Doo!

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It was recently revealed in HBO Max’s Trick or Treat Scooby-Doo! that Velma is a member of the LGBTQ+ community, following confirmation that the character will have a female love interest in the digital movie. It is unknown whether Velma’s love life will be covered in the series.

One element Kaling did confirm is that her Velma is South Asian, something not many Scooby-Doo! fans were happy about.

“When it was announced that I was going to do the voice of Velma, people were very supportive and happy on Twitter. And so I felt great,” she told Seth Meyers in the summer. “Then it was announced a month ago that the Velma character would be reimagined as South Asian. And people were not happy. There was a lot of, like, ‘So not Velma!’ Those kinds of tweets. ‘Not the classic Velma that I’m always thinking about.’”

She added that the social media debate encouraged her to “be careful” when taking on the beloved character.

Charlie Grandy serves as showrunner/executive producer of Velma alongside Mindy Kaling, Howard Klein, and Sam Register.

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