A view of one of the dioramas contained inside iron boxes as part of the “S.A.C.R.E.D” installation by Chinese artist Ai Weiwei during a media preview at the cathedral in Cuenca, Spain, July 21, 2016. Ai Weiwei has reproduced scenes of his incarceration for a new art installation, a series of almost life-size dioramas – encased in steel boxes – showing his life in jail. (Photo by Susana Vera/Reuters)

A racegoers walks into a rubbish bin following 2016 Melbourne Cup Day at Flemington Racecourse on November 1, 2016 in Melbourne, Australia. (Photo by Scott Barbour/Getty Images)

Models display a creation by K-Lynn Lingerie during a fashion show in the Lebanese capital Beirut on April 24, 2016. (Photo by Anwar Amro/AFP Photo)

The 26th annual Visa Pour l’Image, the “Cannes Film Festival” of photojournalism kicks off, filling the French city of Perpignan with more than 3,000 of the world’s best photojournalists and photo editors, along with agencies from around the world. This year’s Visa Pour l’Image showcases 26 exhibitions around the city. Photo: Christians looting a Muslim shop in the “Combattants” district of Bangui. (Photo by Pierre Terdjman/Paris Match)

A rescue helicopter is shown at the Mount Everest south base camp in Nepal a day after a huge earthquake-caused avalanche killed at least 17 people, in this photo courtesy of 6summitschallenge.com taken on April 26, 2015 and released on April 27, 2015. Rescue teams, helped by clear weather, used helicopters to airlift scores of people stranded at higher altitudes, two at a time. (Photo by Reuters/6summitschallenge.com)

A visitors to the National Galleries of Scotland view the work “A girl” of sculptor Ron Mueck on August 4, 2006 Edinburgh in Scotland. (Photo by Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)

A woman lays dead outside the Redemption Hospital on Saturday September 20, 2014 in Monrovia, Liberia. Ebola patients come to the hospital, which has become a transfer and holding center to intake Ebola patients, but there is no space and some die while waiting outside. Redemption is located in one of the poorest neighborhoods of Monrovia that locals call "New Kru Town”. Health workers are overwhelmed with a constant stream of new patients since the Ebola outbreak. (Photo by Michel du Cille/The Washington Post)

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.