Dancers from the British theater company Motionhouse perform a show with excavators entitled “Traction” on the Prado beach in Marseille, France, on May 10, 2013. (Photo by Boris Horvat/AFP Photo)

An agent of the OIPR, one of the government agencies charged with managing protected land, stands next to cocoa trees inside Mont Peko National Park in Duekoue department, western Ivory Coast August 18, 2015. (Photo by Luc Gnago/Reuters)

America in the 1970s: Texas. Motorcyclist loading his possessions onto a truck with the help of his friends in Leakey, May 1973. (Photo by Marc St. Gil/NARA via The Atlantic)

Photographer Howard Schatz had an idea: place actors in a series of roles and dramatic situations to reveal the essence of their characters. Such was the premise behind his book, In Character: Actors Acting, which captures some of Hollywood’s most emotive stars in the act of, well, making faces. Luckily for us, he continued the tradition for Vanity Fair. Here are some of the best.

A young couple rest on a bench, as a street actor wearing an Angel costume speaks on the phone in Nikolskaya street near the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, Wednesday, March 31, 2021. (Photo by Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP Photo)

Japanese chorus girls appear to be drilling in military tactics atop their theater building as they perform salutes, June 30, 1937. The officer is from the Japanese regular army and says the girls display more rhythm in their drills than do the regular troops. (Photo by AP Photo)

A woman looks at artwork called “Alphabetti Spaghetti” by British sculptor Alex Chinneck, one of a series of “knotted” postboxes, installed as part of a public art trail for Kensington & Chelsea Art Week on October 3, 2020. (Photo by Victoria Jones/PA Images via Getty Images)

British fashion designer Mary Quant, right, waves as she poses with models wearing her Mod creations in Little Rock, Ark. on October 25, 1968. The models, from left, are, Amanda Tear, Rory Davis and Penny Yates. (Photo by AP Photo)