A clown performs next to the Monument to the Revolution as he takes part in the Latin American Clown Convention in Mexico City, Mexico, October 21, 2015. The convention will be held from October 19 to 22 in Mexico City. (Photo by Henry Romero/Reuters)

Firefighters use flashlights to search for survivors among the rubble of collapsed buildings after a landslide hit an industrial park in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, China December 20, 2015. (Photo by Tyrone Siu/Reuters)

I would like to tell you why many artists, who like me, have painted portraits and landscapes in oils on canvas, worked with acrylics, watercolors, and pen and ink drawings, have turned to the art of gourd carving.

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.

Seen in a long camera exposure, the Caldor Fire burns on Sunday, August 29, 2021, in Eldorado National Forest, Calif. (Photo by Noah Berger/AP Photo)

American singer-songwriter and actress Olivia Isabel Rodrigo poses outside of Amoeba music in Los Angeles, California at the end of August 2021, as her debut album, “Sour”, gets released on vinyl. (Photo by Instagram)

People cling on to a crowded train as it leaves a railway station during the ongoing Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) outbreak in Ghaziabad, India, September 21, 2021. (Photo by Anushree Fadnavis/Reuters)

People react following an Israeli air strike on Palestinian houses, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on December 12, 2023. (Photo by Fadi Shana/Reuters)