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Why Nicole Jaffe loved playing Velma
Jinkies!
When Fred's plans fail, Daphne falls into a trap, and Scooby and Shaggy run away - Velma Dinkley is the member of Mystery, Inc. who saves the day. Consistently, in every era of the Scooby-Doo franchise, Velma is the brains of the operation, connecting dots, discovering clues, and most often solving the actual mystery.
She couldn't see without her glasses, but Velma Dinkley made generations of nerds feel seen. Before Scooby-Doo, nerds rarely got to be the main characters in cartoons, but rather the weak characters being saved or manipulated. For Velma's first voice actress, Nicole Jaffe, Velma's strength and independence were a source of pride.
"I think my character set a good example for girls," Jaffe said in The Voices of Scooby-Doo: In Their Own Words DVD featurette, "They didn't have to follow around. They could lead, they could have the ideas, that's what I always liked about my character."
Jaffe's feelings were echoed by her fellow Velmas - actresses Linda Cardellini and Kate Micucci. Cardellini, who played Velma in the live-action Scooby-Doo movies, said in an interview promoting the movie, "I think she's interesting, I think she's smart, she's independent, she's very capable,". Cardellini also noted that the live-action challenge for Velma was to show the nerdy investigator's sensitive side and highlight the emotions bottled up from having to do the heavy-lifting of mystery solving for the rest of the gang.
Micucci, who has voiced Velma in 24 productions, including Be Cool, Scooby-Doo!, mentioned her early childhood fandom of Velma at a panel discussion at San Diego Comic Con. "I've always felt this connection to Velma," Micucci said, noting her personal resemblance to Velma, especially when wearing glasses. In another interview with Reel Talker, Micucci said, "(Velma) was always my favorite and that's why it's so extra special for me to get to play her...The nerd has now become the cool person."
