People wear face masks as they ride an E-scooter in the Old Elbe Tunnel in Hamburg, Germany, Thursday, October 15, 2020. To avoid the spread of the coronavirus the use of a face mask in the 117-year-old tunnel under the Elbe river is mandatory. (Photo by Michael Probst/AP Photo)

3-year-old Myla Mills plays with a two day old lamb in a toy pram in her family's farmyard in Arley, Worcestershire, United Kingdom on January 28, 2023. Early lambs are produced when the ram is free to tup the ewes over winter. (Photo by Peter Lopeman/Alamy Live News)

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 seven week old Daschund cross puppy waits to be re-homed at the Cheshire Dogs Home on January 4, 2010 in Warrington, England. (Photo by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)

UK-based photographer Thom Atkinson’s series Soldiers’ Inventories – an attempt to explore “the mythology surrounding Britain’s relationship with war”.

A Polisario fighter sits on a rock at a forward base on the outskirts of Tifariti, Western Sahara, September 9, 2016. At a rocky outpost in Western Sahara, a new generation of soldiers who have never known war are mobilising as tensions resurface in one of Africa's oldest disputes after a quarter century of uneasy peace. (Photo by Zohra Bensemra/Reuters)

A child plays with a plastic badminton racket in the old quarters of Delhi, India, March 3, 2016. (Photo by Anindito Mukherjee/Reuters)