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.

American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift eyes are caught in a photographer's flash as she arrives on the red carpet for the “Billboard Women in Music” event in Los Angeles, California, U.S., December 12, 2019. (Photo by Mike Blake/Reuters)

Ivan Shamyanok, 90, shaves in his house in the village of Tulgovichi, near the exclusion zone around the Chernobyl nuclear reactor, Belarus March 15, 2016. “My sister lived here with her husband. They decided to leave and soon enough they were in the ground ... They died from anxiety. I'm not anxious. I sing a little, take a turn in the yard, take things slowly like this and I live”, he said. (Photo by Vasily Fedosenko/Reuters)

Yuna Hiraiwa of Team Japan falls from the uneven bars during Women's Podium Training ahead of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games at Ariake Gymnastics Centre on July 22, 2021 in Tokyo, Japan. (Photo by Athit Perawongmetha/Reuters)

A performer wearing a face shield looks on during a ceremony held by the Bangkok National Museum to celebrate the return of two ancient relics, believed to have been stolen from Thailand about 60 years ago, from the United States, in Bangkok, Thailand on May 31, 2021. (Photo by Soe Zeya Tun/Reuters)

Icelandic stallions eat hay from a box at a stud farm in Wehrheim near Frankfurt, Germany, Wednesday, March 2, 2022. (Photo by Michael Probst/AP Photo)

Nightmare: New York”, staged in a Lower East Side building, depicts the ugliest, scariest vision of 1970s- and '80s-era Gotham. Subways are awash in graffiti, creeps and crime. Here: In this October 2, 2014 photo, an actor performs during “Nightmare: New York”, a haunted house attraction in New York. (Photo by Frank Franklin II/AP Photo)

A priest comforts one of the relatives of the victims, before a mass in their memory, as Lebanon marks one-year anniversary of Beirut port explosion, at the port in Beirut, Lebanon on August 4, 2021. United in grief and anger, families of the victims and other Lebanese came out into the streets of Beirut on Wednesday to demand accountability as banks, businesses and government offices shuttered to mark one year since the horrific explosion. (Photo by Aziz Taher/Reuters)