American model Bella Hadid celebrating her 23rd birthday at L’Avenue at Saks Fifth Avenue New York, NY on October 10, 2019. (Photo by David Warren/Sipa USA)

American singer Madison Beer arrives at the 2019 TrevorLive Los Angeles Gala at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on November 17, 2019 in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by Splash News and Pictures)

Selena Gomez attends the 2019 American Music Awards at Microsoft Theater on November 24, 2019 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by John Shearer/Getty Images for dcp)

A woman dressed in the style of a Hindu goddess keeps her face partially covered for a ritual during Maha Shivaratri celebrations on March 12, 2021 in Kaveripattinam, India. Maha Shivaratri is a major Hindu festival celebrated annually in honour of the god, Shiva. The festival is observed with chanting prayers, fasting, and meditating to overcome “darkness and ignorance” in life. (Photo by Abhishek Chinnappa/Getty Images)

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.

Mt.Huanshan, or Mount Hua is one of the five sacred mountains in China. The other four are Taishan in Shandong, Songshan in Henan, Hengshan in Shanxi and Hengshan in Hunan.
Mt. Huashan is reputed as the most precipitous of the five.

In this photo taken Thursday, August 13, 2015, a man walks past the charred remains of new cars at a parking lot near the site of an explosion at a warehouse in northeastern China's Tianjin municipality. Rescuers have pulled a survivor from an industrial zone about 32 hours after it was devastated by huge blasts in China's Tianjin port. Meanwhile, authorities are moving gingerly forward in dealing with a fire still smoldering amid potentially dangerous chemicals. (Photo by Ng Han Guan/AP Photo)

Tracy Sarita celebrates the sunrise during the Burning Man 2015 “Carnival of Mirrors” arts and music festival in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada, September 3, 2015. Approximately 70,000 people from all over the world are gathering at the sold-out festival to spend a week in the remote desert to experience art, music and the unique community that develops. (Photo by Jim Urquhart/Reuters)