The voice actor will talk about Scooby Doo’s designated damsel in distress and her other roles when she appears at the pop culture conference in New Orleans this weekend.

Since 1969, every generation has had a Scooby Doo. The OG Scooby Gang in Scooby Doo, Where Are You uncovered real estate scheme after real estate scheme as they unmasked bad guys using elaborate costumes to scare people into selling the desired property. If you learned nothing from Scooby Doo, you learned to be suspicious of land developers.

Since then, there have been 13 animated series including 2019’s Scooby Doo and Guess Who?, which paired the Scooby Gang with animated versions of such stars as Jim Gaffigan, Sia, and Penn & Teller to solve more crimes. There has been the genuinely zany Be Cool, Scooby Doo (2015), the brutally cutesy A Pup Named Scooby Doo (1988), and the deeply weird Scooby Doo: Mystery Incorporated, which is the fanfic version of the show. It treats the decades of cartoons as if they’re all in canon and folds it all into a three-season continuity that also features writer Harlan Ellison, the Red Room dancer from Twin Peaks, and monsters inspired by H.P. Lovecraft.

Two constants for most of that run have been Frank Welker and Grey DeLisle. Welker has been the voice of Fred Jones since 1969 and Scooby since 2002. DeLisle took over the role of Daphne in 2001 and has played her as the character underwent a lot of changes.

Grey DeLisle will be in New Orleans for Fan Expo, which takes place this weekend at the Morial Convention Center. She’ll be on a panel Saturday at 11 a.m. with fellow voice actor Richard Horvitz, then Sunday at 3 p.m. where she’ll talk about the art of voice acting and how you bring characters to life.

Daphne Blake has always been a challenging character. In the early years, she was often the damsel in distress who needed to be rescued, whether because she leaned against a wall that turned out to be a trick door and fell into the bad guy’s clutches, or because she lingered too long at the back of the pack and was picked off by a creeper in a ghoul mask.

She gained some agency in 1985’s The 13 Ghosts of Scooby Doo. She became team leader for a ghost-hunting crew that included Shaggy and Scooby, TV horror host Vincent Van Ghoul (voiced by Vincent Price) and the tough-to-take duo of Scrappy Doo and kid hustler Flim-Flam. That characterization wouldn’t last though, and A Pup Named Scooby Doo reset the Scooby Gang as pre-teens including a wealthy, stuck-up Daphne.

DeLisle won’t comment on the versions of Daphne that she found less interesting out of respect for the creators of the many series and TV movies. She will, however, identify her favorites. “I know no one likes the one where they look like The Family Guy (Stay Cool, Scooby Doo), but I liked it because of the writing,” she says. “The writing was funny and Daphne was weird. She had a beard in one episode and puppets in another.”

She also likes Scooby Doo: Mystery Incorporated because it’s almost a commentary on the series up to that point. “It was really funny and I liked how they finally addressed Velma’s sexuality with her girlfriend Hot Dog Water,” DeLisle says.

Daphne had been played by four actresses before DeLisle, who was close friends with Mary Kay Bergman, the voice of Daphne from 1998 to 2000. Bergman dealt with mental health challenges and killed herself in 1999, and her traumatic passing made DeLisle reluctant to audition for the part.

“Her husband staying in my spare room at the time because he was devastated and didn’t want to go back to their house, and he was, like, Grey, you should audition for it.”

Now, she has played Daphne longer than anyone else. “She feels like part of my DNA,” DeLisle says. Early on, she felt some imposter syndrome, but now she feels like there’s a little of independence in Daphne.

“Daphne used to be this simple character,” DeLisle says. “Now she rolls her eyes when Freddy makes eyes at other girls. More and more of my snarkiness is coming out.”

I interviewed DeLisle in 2022 about her COVID project, Princess Mike.

I also interviewed William Shatner, James Marsters (Angel, Buffy the Vampire Slayer) and Bitsie Tulloch (Grimm, Superman & Lois) for The New Orleans Advocate.