Lightning illuminates a thundercloud as a storm front hits the North Sea region near Westerhever, northern Germany, on August 11, 2014. (Photo by Daniel Reinhardt/AFP Photo/DPA)

A Brazilian drug gang member nicknamed Pilintra, 26, poses with a gun atop a hill overlooking a slum in Salvador, Bahia State, April 11, 2013. One of Brazil's main tourist destinations and a 2014 World Cup host city, Salvador suffers from an unprecedented wave of violence with an increase of over 250% in the murder rate, according to the Brazilian Center for Latin American Studies (CEBELA). (Photo by Lunae Parracho/Reuters)

Local villagers ride a local coal powered steam train on March 27, 2015 at a station in the town of Shixi , Sichuan Province, in Southern China. While China boasts the world's most extensive high-speed rail infrastructure with over 16,000 kilometers of track, the Shixi-Bagou railway is still a primary connection for local villagers between towns and is kept alive by tourist cars carrying passengers for ten times the price. The rail line came into service in the late 1950s and the train was initially used to transport coal from a now-shuttered mine before passenger carriages were added. (Photo by Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)

Children play on a donkey cart belonging to an elderly Afghan refugee sleeping on a roadside on the outskirts of Islamabad, Pakistan, Wednesday, February 18, 2015. (Photo by Muhammed Muheisen/AP Photo)

A woman looks towards part of an artwork called “Lichen! Libido! (London!) Chastity!” by Anthea Hamilton, one of the four artists shortlisted for the Turner Prize 2016, as it is displayed at the Tate Britain gallery in London, Monday, September 26, 2016. The Turner Prize aims to promote public debate around new developments in contemporary British art. (Photo by Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP Photo)

38 year old Prabhat Sinha, from Assam, carries a load of coal weighing 60kg's, supported by a head-strap, as he ascends the staircase of a coal mine on April 16, 2011 near the village of Khliehriat, in the district of Jaintia Hills, India. (Photo by Daniel Berehulak/Getty Images)

Mug shot of De Gracy (sic) and Edward Dalton. Details unknown. Central Police Station, Sydney, around 1920. (Photo by NSW Police Forensic Photography Archive, Justice & Police Museum, Histiric Houses Trust of NSW)

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.