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.

This cable ropeway suspended between cliffs is the only access to Yushan village in Hubei Province, Chin, which has a population of just over 200 people. The ropeway was built in 1997; before that villagers faced a walk of several days to get to the next nearest village. The ropeway, which is powered by a diesel engine, is 1,000 metres long and 400 metres above the valley floor.

A woman covers her face as men throw colored powder at her during “Lathmar Holi” at the village of Barsana in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh March 9, 2014. (Photo by Anindito Mukherjee/Reuters)

I wanted to create the smoke effects on animals I used on some few of my female subjects.
The hardest part was that while there were only faces, here there was the whole body that needed to be “smokeified”.

Guests have breakfast as another guest climbs to gather at the Skylodge Adventure Suites in the Sacred Valley in Cuzco, Peru, August 14, 2015. Tourists taking on an arduous climb up the steep cliff face of Peru's Sacred Valley are being rewarded for their efforts by being able to spend the night in transparent mountaintop sleeping pods at the “Skylodge Adventure Suites”. To reach the pods, visitors need to climb 400 metres of via ferrata (a steel cable and rungs) up the valley side or hike an intrepid trail through zip lines. (Photo by Pilar Olivares/Reuters)

A demonstrator with face painted in the colours of the Palestinian flag protests outside the Israeli Embassy in west London July 26, 2014. Foreign ministers from the United States, Europe and the Middle East called on Saturday for an extension of the 12-hour ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said. (Photo by Luke MacGregor/Reuters)

Todd Bretl specializes in underwater photography, and is able to capture striking photos of aquatic life big and small. His photos of sharks are particularly striking; though he rarely faces hostility from the animals, he tries not to spend too much time looking through his viewfinder and many shots are framed by educated guesses and impeccable timing. What follows are photographs taken over the past several years on trips to the Bahamas and Isla Guadalupe, an island off the coast of the Baja California peninsula in Mexico. (Photo by Todd Bretl)

A police dog licks its face after receiving food during the dog festival, as part of celebrations of Tihar at Nepal Police Academy in Kathmandu October 22, 2014. Hindus all over Nepal are celebrating the Tihar festival, also called Diwali, during which they worship cows, which are considered a maternal figure, and other animals. Also known as the festival of lights, devotees also worship the goddess of wealth Laxmi by illuminating and decorating their homes using garlands, oil lamps, candles and colourful light bulbs. (Photo by Navesh Chitrakar/Reuters)