A high-kicking Parisian can-can dancer. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images). 1895

Bikini Contest in Daytona Beach, Florida’s Atlantic coast, circa 1980s. (Photo by Evan Hurd/Sygma/Sygma via Getty Images)

British tourists snap a cheeky selfie with a monkey at the Ubud Monkey Forest in Bali, Indonesia, August 4, 2015. George Benton, 22, from Paignton, Devon was visiting the Sacred Monkey Forest Sanctuary in Ubud, Bali whilst traveling with his girlfriend Chloe when the couple snapped a surprise shot with Balinese long-tailed monkey using a “selfie stick”. “We couldn't believe our luck when we looked back at the photos, he looked straight into the camera!” said George, who went on to reward the cheeky chap with a banana for giving the couple such a memorable photo. (Photo by George Benton/Splash News)

A “Federahannes”, a jester figure from Rottweil, participates in the “Narrensprung” (jester jump) parade in Rottweil, southern Germany, Monday, February 27, 2016. About 4000 jesters paraded through the city among thousands of spectators. The Rottweil Narrensprung is the highlight of the Swabian-Alemannic Fastnacht and one of the traditional pre-Lenten carnival parades in southwestern Germany. (Photo by Michael Probst/AP Photo)

Dancers perform during the carnival in Encarnacion, Paraguay on February 26, 2017. Encarnacion is located 375 km south of Asuncion, describes itself as the “Carnival Capital of Paraguay”. (Photo by Norberto Duarte/AFP Photo)

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.

People watch as an acrobat rides his motorcycle around a circular track at an entertainment park set up outside a shrine in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, on June 19, 2013. (Photo by Muhammed Muheisen/Associated Press)

A cat dressed in a traditional Ukrainian embroidered shirt takes part in a parade in Kiev, Ukraine on May 28, 2016. (Photo by Gleb Garanich/Reuters)