Daily Inspiration Quote by Richard Griffiths

Griffiths is doing that actorly thing where a throwaway preference doubles as a tiny manifesto. On the surface, it reads like a casual bit of old-Hollywood taste-making: Bette Davis versus Jane Russell, team A versus team B. Underneath, it’s a pointed refusal of a certain kind of cultural reverence. Davis stands for flinty prestige: razor-edged intelligence, emotional abrasion, the kind of glamour that dares you to call it glamorous. Russell is a different proposition: softer focus, sex-symbol marketing, a more openly physical appeal. Saying “I could never understand the attraction” isn’t just taste; it’s a strategic feint away from the canon.

The line works because it’s slightly rude in the old British way: mild, conversational, but with a sting. Griffiths isn’t arguing; he’s shrugging, which is often the stronger posture. It punctures the implicit rule that serious people are supposed to worship Davis. In that sense it’s also class-coded: Davis’s allure can feel like a test of sophistication, while Russell’s reads as unembarrassed pleasure. He’s aligning himself with appetite over adjudication.

Context matters, too. Griffiths (born 1947) grew up in a postwar Britain where Hollywood femininity arrived as both escape and instruction. Picking Russell hints at the adolescent, screen-lit education of desire; rejecting Davis hints at impatience with severity dressed up as taste. The subtext: stop treating cultural admiration like a moral credential.