A woman bathes into the icy water on Epiphany during a traditional Epiphany at the Great Palace Pond with the Church of the Holy Trinity in Ostankino in the background in Moscow, Russia, on Thursday, January 18, 2024. (Photo by Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP Photo)

Residents protest a police operation targeting drug traffickers in the Jacarezinho favela of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Thursday, May 6, 2021. At least 25 people died during the operation, including one police officer and 24 suspects, according to the press office of Rio's civil police. (Photo by Silvia Izquierdo/AP Photo)

In this May 4, 2014 photo, a miner holds an amalgam of mercury and gold he mined after working a 28-hour shift at an illegal gold mining process, in La Pampa, in Peru's Madre de Dios region. Thousands of artisanal gold miners sweat through the long shifts and endure, for a few grams of gold, the perils of collapsing earth, limb-crushing machinery and the toxic mercury used to bind gold flecks. (Photo by Rodrigo Abd/AP Photo)

Festival goers splash through a muddy puddle at Worthy Farm in Somerset, on the third day of the Glastonbury music festival June 27, 2014. (Photo by Cathal McNaughton/Reuters)

A pro-democracy demonstrator fights with a Soviet soldier on top of a tank parked in front of the Russian Federation building on August 19, 1991, after a coup toppled Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev. The same day, thousands in Moscow, Leningrad, and other cities answered Russian Republic President Boris Yeltsin's call to raise barricades against tanks and troops. (Dima Tanin/AFP/Getty Images)

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.

One woman was pictured sitting bare foot on a pavement in Leeds in the northern English county of Yorkshire on May 30, 2021. With the sun streaming down, Brits have been taking full advantage of the three-day weekend by packing out pub gardens and lining up the beers at bars. (Photo by Nb press ltd)

Costumed children from the local Shade performance group perform their show during the annual Brixton Burn in Johannesburg, South Africa, 28 August 2021. The annual event is run by members of the “Afrikaburn” community which is a regional event of “Burning Man” in the United States. (Photo by Kim Ludbrook/EPA/EFE)