This aerial picture taken on June 29, 2024 shows fishing boats moored at a beach in Danang, central Vietnam. (Photo by Dale De La Rey/AFP Photo)

Philippine actor Soliman Cruz wearing a business suit stands inside an 8-foot transparent bubble while other activists wearing masks touch the bubble during an anti-pollution protest near a park in Manila on April 25, 2025. The protest is part of a climate advocates 350 campaign on Manila's air pollution crisis, due to traffic emissions, fossil fuel and unchecked industrial activity. (Photo by Ted Aljibe/AFP 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.

A jogger runs on the bank of Donaukanal channel in central Vienna, Austria, September 5, 2016. (Photo by Heinz-Peter Bader/Reuters)

At a beauty contest to select the nation's Queen of Height during the first national convention of Tall People's Clubs in New York on July 29, 1949, little Charlie Young, only three feet, eleven inches tall, acting as judge, had a tough time making up his mind for the choice. The national minimum height requirement for women members is 5 feet 10 inches, and for men, 6 feet. (Photo by Robert Kradin/AP Photo)

Giving out with a yell, Elke Sommer is tossed on the trampoline as she trains for her movie role as an athlete, on the playing field of the University of California at Los Angeles, June 8, 1967. (Photo by AP Photo)

Russian cadets march during the annual cadet schools get-together in Moscow, Russia on March 30, 2018. (Photo by Mladen Antonov/AFP Photo)

Bollywood actress and former p*rn star Sunny Leone stands with her wax likeness during its unveiling at the Madame Tussauds museum in New Delhi, India, Tuesday, September 18, 2018. The statue unveiled Tuesday represents the 37-year-old celebrity's acceptance by mainstream Indian society even as conservative Indian politicians condemn her p*rn-star past. (Photo by Anupam Nath/AP Photo)