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.

Faces adorn crosses placed in the Garden of Remembrance of some of Britain's armed forces members who have died in Afghanistan in the Garden of Remembrance outside Westminster Abbey at the official opening of the Royal British Legion's Field of Remembrance on November 5, 2009 in London, England. (Photo by Alastair Grant-Pool/Getty Images)

This barking set of images takes the saying “dogs look like their owners” to the ultimate conclusion. Photographer Sebastian Magnani, 28, has cleverly spliced the features of four-legged friends with the head and shoulders of their owners. In a series called “Underdogs”, the Swiss photographer shot the owners and their respective pets in the same portrait style. Then he used expert photo-manipulation techniques to seamlessly transplant the canine faces onto the human bodies. (Photo by Sebastian Magnani)

Central to The Capture Site on the R103 in the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands – where Nelson Mandela was arrested in 1963 – is a sculptural installation by Johannesburg artist Marco Cianfanelli. When viewed from a distance, the 50 painted laser-cut steel columns form the image of Madiba’s face. Click on the image below for more on The Capture Site.

Skeleton involves a person riding a small sled down a frozen track while lying face down. The sport is a more intense form of luge because skeleton competitors leap onto the sled and slide downhill head first. Skeleton athletes can reach up to 80 mph on straightaways, causing forces up to 5g, so the helmet is a critical component for attitude as well as safety.

Women look at a collapsed building caused by earthquakes, in Bhaktapur, Nepal, May 18, 2015. Nepal is facing billions in reconstruction costs with almost 745,600 buildings and homes damaged or destroyed, including at least 87,700 in the capital, according to Nepal's emergency authority. (Photo by Ahmad Masood/Reuters)

In this photo taken on Monday, October 27, 2014, a cactus stands at a broken window in a damaged house after shelling not far from Donetsk airport in the town of Donetsk, eastern Ukraine. Donetsk, which has lost about 400,000 of its 1 million pre-war population, is bracing to a winter ahead. In a climate like eastern Ukraine's, where temperatures typically stay below zero all winter, the damage to the critical infrastructure and lack of effort to provide adequate shelter to people whose homes were destroyed could literally mean a death from the cold. (Photo by Dmitry Lovetsky/AP Photo)

“The Victoria Falls or Mosi-oa-Tunya is a waterfall located in southern Africa on the Zambezi River between the countries of Zambia and Zimbabwe. A famous feature is a naturally formed pool known as the Devil's Pool, near the edge of the falls, accessed via Livingstone Island in Zambia. When the river flow is at a certain level, usually during the months of September to December, a rock barrier forms a pool with little current; some people swim in the pool. Occasional deaths have been reported when people slip over the edge of the rock barrier”. – Wikipedia

Photo: Devil's Pool – Victoria Falls, Zambia. (Photo by Siena College Study Abroad)