A pilgrim holds up the cross after it was thrown by an Orthodox priest into the water, during an epiphany ceremony to bless the sea, on the southeast resort of Ayia Napa, Cyprus, Friday, January 6, 2023. By tradition, a crucifix is cast into the waters of a lake or river, and it is believed that the person who retrieves it will be freed from evil spirits and will be healthy through the year. (Photo by Petros Karadjias/AP Photo)

A street performer jumps in the air inside Central Park as the colors of autumn become more prevalent in New York, October 29, 2015. (Photo by Lucas Jackson/Reuters)

Graduates jump as they pose for photographs in front of the Tiananmen Gate and the giant portrait of late Chinese Chairman Mao Zedong, on the Tiananmen Square in Beijing, June 19, 2014. (Photo by Reuters/Stringer)

Filipino boys play basketball at an improvised court hooked on multi-layered tombs at a public cemetery in Navotas, north of Manila, Philippines on Thursday Oct. 31, 2013. Filipinos are expected to flock to cemeteries on November 1 to remember their dead as they observe All Saints Day in this predominantly Roman Catholic country. (Photo by Aaron Favila/AP 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.

Mug shot of De Gracy (sic) and Edward Dalton. Details unknown. Central Police Station, Sydney, around 1920. (Photo by NSW Police Forensic Photography Archive, Justice & Police Museum, Histiric Houses Trust of NSW)

A Swiss police officer accompanies a migrant from Syria carrying her baby, upon her arrival at the railway station in the north-eastern Swiss town of Buchs September 1, 2015. (Photo by Arnd Wiegmann/Reuters)

Dancers from the “Legend Lin Dance Theatre” perform the artistic director and choreographer Li-chen Lin's classic works “Hymne aux Fleurs qui Passent, Anthem to the Fading Flowers” during a rehearsal at the National Theater Concert Hall in Taipei, Taiwan, Tuesday, August 18, 2015. “Hymne aux Fleurs Qui Passent” pays tribute to the cycle of the year and the complementary principles of Yin and Yang whose eternal struggle provides the driving force behind the changing of the seasons. (Photo by Chiang Ying-ying/AP Photo)