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 visitor and autumn foliage are reflected in the lake at Stourhead gardens in Wiltshire, Britain, November 2, 2018. (Photo by Toby Melville/Reuters)

In this Wednesday, July 23, 2014 file photo, Omaha photographer Lane Hickenbottom photographs the night sky in a pasture near Callaway, Neb. With no moon in the sky, the Milky Way was visible to the naked eye. More than one-third of the world’s population can no longer see the Milky Way because of man-made lights, according to a scientific paper by Light Pollution Science and Technology Institute's Fabio Falchi and his team members, published on Friday, June 10, 2016. (Photo by Travis Heying/The Wichita Eagle via AP Photo)

This lemur looks like he is channelling the spirit of Buddha – as he sits meditating. Sitting with his legs crossed, the lemur clasps his thumb and fore finger together with outstretched arms – just like the spiritual teacher. And amateur snapper Sebastien Degardin, 32, was on hand to capture the bizarre moment the animal searched for enlightenment on film. Sebastien, who moved from his native Belgium to Finchley, North London, said: “I was gobsmacked when I saw this lemur meditating”. (Photo by Sebastien Degardin/Caters News)

This picture taken on January 1, 2014 shows giant panda “Li Li” sleeping on a tree in Hangzhou Wild Animal World in Hangzhou, east China's Zhejiang province. Giant pandas, notorious for their low s*x drive, are among the world's most endangered animals. Fewer than 1,600 pandas remain in the wild, mainly in China's Sichuan province, with a further 300 in captivity around the world. (Photo by AFP Photo)

A man holds up for a picture a one hundred trillion Zimbabwean dollars note inside a shop in Harare, Zimbawe, June 12, 2015. Hyperinflation in Zimbabwe was a period of currency instability that began in the late 1990s shortly after the confiscation of private farms from landowners, towards the end of Zimbabwean involvement in the Second Congo War. During the height of inflation from 2008 to 2009, it was difficult to measure Zimbabwe's hyperinflation because the government of Zimbabwe stopped filing official inflation statistics. However, Zimbabwe's peak month of inflation is estimated at 79.6 billion percent in mid-November 2008. (Photo by Philimon Bulawayo/Reuters)

David Cassidy (1950-2017) and Kay Lenz at their wedding at The Little Church Of The West in Las Vegas, Nevada, 1977. (Photos by Brad Elterman/FilmMagic)

A group of riders splash down a water slide in Bromont, Que on Monday, June 29, 2020 as water parks reopen in the province of Quebec, Canada. (Photo by Canadian Press/Rex Features/Shutterstock)