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.

Indian Muslim children hold anti-US placards as they participate in a protest meeting against the film “Innocence of Muslims” in Kolkata on October 5, 2012. A low-budget, US-produced “Innocence of Muslims” movie has incited a wave of bloody anti-US violence in Libya, Egypt, Sudan, Tunisia, Yemen and in several other countries across the Muslim world. (Photo by Dibyangshu Sarkar/AFP/AFP Photo)

Revellers parade for Gavioes da Fiel samba school during carnival in Sao Paulo, Brazil, February 6, 2016. (Photo by Paulo Whitaker/Reuters)

Smoke rises from a house days after part of the ground it was resting on collapsed into Lake Whitney, Texas in this June 13, 2014 file photo. I was covering the controlled burn of a house slowly falling into Lake Whitney due to the decaying cliff underneath. Asked to take photos from an aerial perspective, an instructor and I took off from Grand Prairie Municipal Airport around 9am. The burn, scheduled to start an hour later, was delayed. I love flying, but patience proved challenging as circling for nearly three hours gets boring fast. Once the fire started we only had 15 minutes to take photos because the plane was booked at 1pm. The owners invested their retirement savings in the house and were even advised by geologists that the ground was stable. To watch your investment literally go up in flames must take its toll emotionally. The owners said they don't expect their insurance to cover the loss. (Photo and caption by Brandon Wade/Reuters)

Members of the Uniao da Ilha do Governador Samba School perform during the first day of the Special Group Samba Schools parade of Carnival at the Sambadrome in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 07 February 2016. (Photo by Luiz Eduardo Perez/EPA)

A picture released by the North Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) shows Kim Jong-un convening an urgent operation meeting at 0:30 am on March 29, 2013 at an undisclosed location, in which he ordered strategic rocket forces to be on standby to strike US and South Korean targets at any time. (Photo by KCNA via EPA)

In this photo posted on Twitter, Sunday, May 3, 2015, and provided by NASA, Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti sips espresso from a cup designed for use in zero-gravity, on the International Space Station. Cristoforetti, the first Italian woman in space, fired up the first espresso machine in space, which uses small capsules, or pods, of espresso coffee. (Photo by AP Photo/NASA)

Two models sit in an acrylic “ZF-Car” from the German manufacturer of the same name at the Automechanika automotive service industry trade fair in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, 12 September 2016. The Automechanika Fair runs from 13 to 17 September 2016. (Photo by Boris Rössler/EPA)