The original live action Velma is spreading all the love to the recent animated version of the Scooby-Doo character after she officially came out.
Linda Cardellini, who portrayed the orange-loving mystery solver, is celebrating the franchise's new animated film Trick or Treat Scooby Doo! for solidifying Velma as a member of the LGBTQ+ community.
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Fans have long speculated that the queen of losing her glasses was gay but it wasn’t until the latest film was Velma’s romantic interest in another woman – named Coco Diablo – shown.
The beloved member of The Mystery Inc. literally has googly-eyes every time Coco is around the gang and Linda couldn’t be more pleased.
“Velma has been around since 1969,” the Dead to Me actor told Entertainment Weekly. “I just went trick or treating with my daughter and there were a lot of Velmas out there, so I love that she still has this place in culture that is sort of always active for decades.
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"I think [her being a lesbian has] been hinted at so many times, and I think it’s great that it’s finally out there.”
Linda starred as Velma in both two live-action Scooby-Doo movies; the 2002 adaptation and its 2004 sequel, Scooby-Doo: Monsters Unleashed.
The 47-year-old was joined by Freddie Prinze Jr. as Fred, Sarah Michelle Gellar as Daphne and Matthew Lillard as Shaggy in both films.
The films have received high praise from fans and both were written by James Gunn, who is now best known as the director behind Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy and DC’s The Suicide Squad film.
Gunn had wanted to make Linda’s Velma gay in his films but the studio declined the idea. He opened about it in series of tweets back in 2020.
“In 2001, Velma was explicitly gay in my initial script,” Gunn tweeted. “But the studio just kept watering it down and watering it down, becoming ambiguous (the version shot), then nothing (the released version) and finally having a boyfriend (the sequel).”
In what will be music to the ears of Scooby-Doo fans, Linda said she would totally be up for returning as Velma in another film.
“Oh God, Yeah!” she told the publication when asked if she’d come back for a third film. “[But] I’m probably too old.”
And just in case you were wondering, a third Scooby-Doo film in this universe is not in the pipeline at the moment.
Regardless, Linda, you’ll always be Velma in our hearts!
