An Afghan boy carrying empty plastic cans, walks along a street in Kabul on December 21, 2023. (Photo by Wakil Kohsar/AFP Photo)

A protester clashes with riot police officers during a protest against the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit 2022, near the Democracy Monument in Bangkok, Thailand on November 18, 2022. (Photo by Tanat Chayaphattharitthee/Reuters)

The hare was actually yawning and stretching but, looking back at the photos, it does look like it was laughing — probably at my husband and I as we had been sat there in the freezing conditions for about five hours just waiting for this kind of behaviour in Cairngorms, Scotland in the last decade of February 2025. (Photo by Michelle Coyle/Solent News & Photo Agency)

Edinburgh mask maker Lorraine Pritchard on Sunday, January 28, 2024 alongside some of her Venetian masks which will be worn and displayed at the Venice Carnival, which starts on Saturday February 3. Lorraine studied model making at Glasgow College of Building and Printing and Venetian mask making in Florence, Italy. She travels to Venice each year to be a “mask” herself, wearing different masks she has designed as a live exhibit of her work. (Photo by Jane Barlow/PA Images via Getty Images)

Philippine actor Soliman Cruz wearing a business suit stands inside an 8-foot transparent bubble while other activists wearing masks touch the bubble during an anti-pollution protest near a park in Manila on April 25, 2025. The protest is part of a climate advocates 350 campaign on Manila's air pollution crisis, due to traffic emissions, fossil fuel and unchecked industrial activity. (Photo by Ted Aljibe/AFP Photo)

Faces of a couple are smeared with colored powder as they celebrate Holi, the Hindu festival of colors, in Mumbai, India, Monday, March 25, 2024. (Photo by Rafiq Maqbool/AP Photo)

A participant in the Crazy Races extreme sports game competes in the cross-country obstacle race in Ufa, Russia on September 21, 2015. (Photo by TASS/Barcroft Media)

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.