As far as I can gather, if you are a man, there are only three circumstances in your life when it is not a rank act of homosexuality to cry. When your team crashes out of a competition. When the dog you had from childhood dies. And when you appear on Inside the Actors Studio.

Everyone cries on Inside the Actors Studio. That's pretty much what it's there for. The US cable channel show may have spent the past 14 years pretending it exists as a masterclass in acting and direction. That's the story it has fed to the press. But in reality, Inside the Actors Studio exists as an emotional escape hatch. A heterosexually sanctioned cry-arium. The televised equivalent of being able to say, “It's OK - it's just something in my eye.” Sharon Stone, Spike Lee, Tom Hanks, Melanie Griffith, Steven Spielberg, Jack Lemmon, Ed Harris, Gene Hackman and Danny Glover have all used the show as some kind of A-list wailing wall.

The most popular trigger-points for Hollywood sorrow seem to be: 1) conversations about Aids 2) “mom and dad” in general, and 3) “the emptiness inside” - with particular reference to the subject's struggles with alcohol/drugs or, presumably, trying not to be blown away on a windy day. It can go wrong, however. When Tom Hanks started his crying session about Aids, he started weeping on the words “noodle factory” - which is, whichever way you slice it, quite funny. Especially if your voice goes all high and sad on the word “noodle”.

It is, perhaps, then, in tribute to Inside the Actors Studio's unique place in the televisual pantheon, that Sky Arts is devoting a week to the show. Starting tonight, we have the possibility of weeping with Tom Hanks (again), Dave Chappelle, Cameron Diaz, Elton John and Forest Whitaker. It kicks off with the Hanks re-match, some 11 years on from his last ITAS catharsis.

Two things strike you on watching the interview. The first is what a lovely man Tom Hanks is. Really, is there anyone who wouldn't go on a narrowboat holiday in Staffordshire with him? The second is how much Hanks increasingly resembles Keith Chegwin - and that you would probably ruin the narrowboat holiday by drunkenly telling Hanks that, and shouting, “You both have unusually lozenge-shaped hair!”

Actually, a third thing strikes you, as well - just how pleasurable it is to watch an actor say a series of really quite pretentious things about their craft. Whenever we see actors being interviewed these days, they're either a) having “WHERE ARE YOUR FABULOUS SHOES FROM?” shouted at them on a red carpet, or b) watching, with slight disbelief, as Jonathan Ross tells them that he wants to have sex with them.

How cheering, then, to return to the golden era of celebrity interviews, when actors start talking Ralph Richardson-esque nonsense within minutes of beginning an interview.

“Artifice is the blockade to the reality we want to create,” Hanks says, as the viewer's heart leaps joyfully, like a hare, inside their ribs. “I've had a chance to explore mysteries - that's my choice, not my DNA. That's where verisimilitude becomes a brand of reality. As actors, we get to create that Gestalt whole.”

Of course, that Hanks feels free to say such wonderful, unfashionable things is all due to one man: Inside the Actors Studio presenter and interviewer, James Lipton. For those who have never witnessed Lipton in action, it would be difficult to convey just how odd he is. I struggle within my usually ample vocabulary to serve adequately as his descriptor. “Freaka-mazoid” certainly comes close - but then still falls very short of encompassing his full, horn-swoggling bizarreness.

In a world of fluffy, touchy-feely presenters, he is a bit like Nosferatu - Nosferatu as a civil engineer. Humanity disconcerts him. He cannot look people in the eye. There is no emotional revelation that does not discomfit him deeply. When Danny Glover did his ITAS weep - about his mother, who had died in a car accident - Lipton sat frozen in his chair in horror. Shifting neither his stance nor his expression, he attempted to end the delicate situation with the suggestion: “This moment is a tribute to her.”

Lipton would, clearly, prefer a conversation about Martin Scorsese's favourite lighting technique. Meanwhile, Oprah would give her best bra for this kind of tears. Showbusiness is a funny thing.

Inside the Actors Studio, today, Tue-Fri, Sky Arts, 6pm

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