Germany's Wolfgang Kimmig-Liebe, who has been volunteering as Santa Claus for years, is searched by a Carabiniere paramilitary police officer before entering in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican to attend Pope Francis general audience, Wednesday, December 2, 2015. (Photo by Alessandra Tarantino/AP Photo)

People pour wine at each other during the traditional “Battle of Wine” held as part of the Haro Wine Festival in the La Rioja region in Haro, Spain, 29 June 2016. Every year on 29 June inhabitants and tourists celebrate San Pedro's day by trowing at each other thousands of liters of Riojan wine. (Photo by Abel Alonso/EPA)

A person poses on the track during a fashion competition at the Durban July horse racing event in Durban, South Africa, July 2, 2016. (Photo by Rogan Ward/Reuters)

In this October 21, 2015, file photo, a young man rides a hoverboard along a Manhattan street toward the Empire State Building in New York. More than 500,000 hoverboards are being recalled after reports that they can burst into flames. The Consumer Product Safety Commission said Wednesday, July 6, 2016, it has received 99 reports of battery packs in the two-wheel motorized scooters catching fire or exploding that causing burns or property damage. The recalled hoverboards were made by eight companies. (Photo by Kathy Willens/AP Photo)

A man sits in the back of a taxi with a goat after purchasing it from a livestock market ahead of the Eid al-Adha festival in Kolkata, India, September 8, 2016. (Photo by Rupak De Chowdhuri/Reuters)

Presenter Sofia Vergara arrives at the 88th Academy Awards in Hollywood, California February 28, 2016. (Photo by Adrees Latif/Reuters)

Children react after what activists said was shelling by forces loyal to Syria's President Bashar al-Assad near the Syrian Arab Red Crescent center in the Douma neighborhood of Damascus May 6, 2015. (Photo by Bassam Khabieh/Reuters)

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.