Takeoka Chisaka, Hiroshima, Japan. “One morning in August 1945, I was walking home from the night shift at a factory in Hiroshima. As I reached my door, there was a huge explosion. When I came to, my head was bleeding and I had been blasted 30m away. The atomic bomb had detonated. When I found my mother, her eyes were badly burned. A doctor said they had to come out, but he didn’t have the proper tools so used a knife instead. It was hellish. I became a peace-worker after the war. In the 1960s, at a meeting at the UN, I met one of the people who created the atomic bomb. He apologised”. (Photo and caption by Sasha Maslov)

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 take pictures of the sunset in Berlin October 27, 2014. (Photo by Hannibal Hanschke/Reuters)

A woman wearing a traditional "mantilla" dress takes part in an open-air mass to celebrate Madrid's patron saint La Almudena Virgin in Madrid, Spain, November 9, 2015. (Photo by Susana Vera/Reuters)

John Cox, far left, begins his recall campaign for California governor with “Tag”, a Kodiak brown bear, on Tuesday, May 4, 2021 in Sacramento. It was the first stop for his “Meet the Beast” bus tour. (Photo by Renee C. Byer/The Sacramento Bee via AP Photo)

Belgian yoga teacher Dorien Dierckx, 29 from Brussels enjoys a beer while relaxing in a jacuzzi full of hot water and a mixture of ingredients used to make beer, and where customers can serve their own beer from the tap at the Good Beer Spa in Brussels, Belgium on May 12, 2021. (Photo by Yves Herman/Reuters)

Protesters are detained by police in central Istanbul, Saturday, June 26, 2021. Police used tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse the crowds and detained dozens of LGTBI activists as hundreds defied a ban and tried to stage a gay pride event. (Photo by Emrah Gurel/AP Photo)

Indian actress, singer and the winner of the Miss World 2000 pageant Priyanka Chopra starred as Victoria Leeds in the 2017 remake of “Baywatch”. (Photo by AP Photo/Paramount Pictures)