Japan's Kaori Sakamoto performs during the Gala Exhibition at the World Figure Skating Championships in Saitama, Japan on March 26, 2023. (Photo by Issei Kato/Reuters)

A displaced Palestinian boy, who fled from home due to Israeli strikes, gets a haircut at a tent camp in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on January 8, 2024. (Photo by Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/Reuters)

Belgium. Rosalie, 9, goes to school in Brussels. “At my school we have separate toilets for girls and boys on every floor. My classroom is on the 3rd floor. We have 22 toilets, which are shared between 230 pupils and 20 adults. The teachers at school let us go to the toilet whenever we need to”. (Photo by Tim Dirven/WSUP/Panos)

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.

Dressed up as Punxsutawney Phil, Marty Nagy, of Hallandale Beach, Fla., gives thumbs up to passers by before the start of the 12th annual Groundhog Day on Hollywood Beach, Tuesday, February 2, 2016, in Hollywood, Fla. The event, which featured breakfast and an ocean plunge, benefited the Hollywood Beach Lifeguard Competition Team. (Photo by Wilfredo Lee/AP Photo)

A Thai traffic security guard wears a Santa Claus costume as he directs the traffic on a street during Christmas celebrations outside a shopping mall in Bangkok, Thailand, 22 December 2015. The campaign of a shopping mall is held to celebrate the upcoming Christmas season and to attract shoppers. (Photo by Narong Sangnak/EPA)

Ethnic Wa performer dressed as United Wa State Army (UWSA) soldiers perform a traditional dance in Mongmao, Wa territory in northeast Myanmar October 1, 2016. Wa State is an unrecognised state in Myanmar (Burma) and is currently subsumed under the official Wa Special Region 2 of northern Shan State. The Wa were once known as the “Wild Wa” by the British due to their practice of headhunting. (Photo by Soe Zeya Tun/Reuters)

Former Vice President Joe Biden, 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, right, watches as his wife Jill Biden, center, blocks a protester from arriving on stage during an primary night rally in the Baldwin Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, U.S., on Tuesday, March 3, 2020. The biggest day of the presidential primary calendar will define the nomination fight for Bernie Sanders and Biden and determine whether Michael Bloomberg and Elizabeth Warren have a rationale for carrying on their campaigns. (Photo by Patrick T. Fallon/Bloomberg via Getty Images)