Festival goers attend the 2023 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival on April 14, 2023 in Indio, California. (Photo by Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images for Coachella)

A pair of black-necked stilts fight over their marshland territory in Orlando, Florida in the last decade of July 2024. (Photo by Jake Landing/Solent News)

Model Heidi Klum and TV personality Nick Cannon speak onstage during Nickelodeon's 24th Annual Kids' Choice Awards at Galen Center on April 2, 2011 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images)

Miss Brazil Julia Gama reacts after her team won the tug of war event during the Miss World sports competition at the Lee Valley sports complex in north London, November 26, 2014. Contestants from 126 countries are in London to compete in the 2014 Miss World competition. (Photo by Andrew Winning/Reuters)

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 Lebanese man is reflected in a pool of dirty water as he casts his fishing pole from a rocky coastal area along the Beirut coastline, Lebanon, Monday, October 3, 2016. (Photo by Hassan Ammar/AP Photo)

Singer Ariana Grande (C) performs “Side by Side” during the 2016 American Music Awards in Los Angeles, California, U.S., November 20, 2016. (Photo by Mario Anzuoni/Reuters)

Models struggle against strong wind before the rehearsal of Christian Dior's Haute Couture Spring-Summer 2017 live show to celebrate Dior's new flagship store on the rooftop of Ginza Six mall in Tokyo, Japan, April 19, 2017. (Photo by Toru Hanai/Reuters)