A pro-Russian rebel guards a captured former Ukrainian Army checkpoint outside Vuhlehirsk, Donetsk region, eastern Ukraine, Thursday, February 5, 2015. The rebels have closed in around the town in a strategy they triumphantly refer to as the Debaltseve cauldron. Separatists recently burst through government lines in the rural settlement of Vuhlehirsk. (Photo by Vadim Braydov/AP 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 Pakistani monkey handler Naseer Khan plays flute to attract passers by for a monkey show to earn his living in Islamabad, Pakistan, Monday, September 7, 2015. (Photo by B. K. Bangash/AP Photo)

In this photo taken Tuesday, April 14, 2015, immigrant men armed with machetes make their way onto a Durban, South Africa, street during clashes with police and in search of locals that attacked foreign shop owners in the city center. (Photo by Tebogo Letsie/AP Photo)

A man helps an elderly woman to run for cover after heavy shelling on the only escape route used by locals, while Russian troops advance towards the capital, in Irpin, near Kyiv, Ukraine on March 6, 2022. (Photo by Carlos Barria/Reuters)

Anti abortion pregnant women attend a protest outside the U.S. Supreme Court as justices hear oral arguments in a bid by President Joe Biden's administration to preserve broad access to the abortion pill, in Washington, U.S., March 26, 2024. (Photo by Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters)

Simone Genziuk is one of the star’s of Sydney's Royal Easter Show – not surprising when you see her lift a 75kg washing machine with her hair. The 43-year-old known as Simi is one of the star’s of this year’s Royal Easter Show and it’s all thanks to her hair. Ms Genziuk is no newcomer to the art of circus performing having been an aerial acrobat for 13 years. (Photo by Nathan Edwards/Newspix/SIPA Press)

Miss Nord-Pas-de-Calais Camille Cerf (C) is congratulated by Miss Ile de France 2014 Margaux Savary (L) and Miss Auvergne 2014 Morgane Laporte after Cerf won the Miss France 2015 beauty contest on December 6, 2014 in Orleans. (Photo by Guillaume Souvant/AFP Photo)