Kaling, 42, will be voicing the iconic character in an HBO Max show titledVelma,the streaming serviceannouncedin February.
“When it was announced that I was going to do the voice of Velma, people were very supportive and happy on Twitter,” Kaling said during an appearance onLate Night With Seth MeyersThursday. “So I felt great because these are really intense fans — cartoon, comic book fans.”
However, theNever Have I Evercreator added that when HBO Max revealed that the character would be of South Asian descent last month, the reception was not as positive.
“People were not happy,” Kaling said. “There was a lot of, ‘So, not Velma?’ Those kinds of tweets. ‘Not the classic Velma that I’m always thinking about?'”
Charles Sykes/Bravo/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty; Alamy
“First of all, I didn’t know that she elicited such strong reactions in either direction,” she continued. “She’s such a great character, she’s so smart and I just couldn’t understand how people couldn’t imagine a really smart, nerdy girl with terrible eyesight who loved to solve mysteries, could not be Indian. There are Indian nerds.”
“It shouldn’t be a surprise to people, but people are like, ‘No, no, no,'” she said.
“It made me think, ‘Okay, we’ve got to be really careful with this character,’ which we will be because we love her and she’s going to have great adventures,” she said.
Lloyd Bishop/NBC
Kaling is no stranger to animated voiceover roles, having voiced a main role in Pixar’sInside Outand, most recently, the character of Val on the new Disney+Monster Inc.spinoff series,Monsters at Work.
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OnLate NightThursday,she told hostSeth Meyersthat her 3-year-old daughterKatherinecouldn’t be more excited about her mom’s latest cartoon appearance.
“She loves it,” she said of herMonsters at Workrole. “She’s already, like, driven crazy with power. She’s like, ‘That’s my mom!'”
source: people.com
