A Sudanese girl with half painted face watches as protesters demonstrate outside the defense ministry compound in Khartoum, Sudan, April 25, 2019. (Photo by Umit Bektas/Reuters)

Members of team China perform during the Artistic Swimming Team Free Final at the FINA Swimming World Championships in Gwangju, South Korea, 19 July 2019. (Photo by Antonio Bat/EPA/EFE/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

In this photo taken on Thursday, August 22, 2019, and distributed by Roscosmos Space Agency Press Service, the Russian Progress 73 cargo ship blasts off from the launch pad at Russia's space facility in Baikonur, Kazakhstan. The new Russian rocket, that is expected to replace the current model sending manned missions into space, blasted off from Kazakhstan on Thursday, carrying a Soyuz capsule with a humanoid robot. (Photo by Roscosmos Space Agency Press Service via AP Photo)

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.

Colombia fans celebrate a goal during the World Cup Group C soccer match between Colombia and Greece, at a park in Bogota June 14, 2014. (Photo by John Vizcaino/Reuters)

Keep your eyes peeled: A Chinese teenager slipped and stabbed himself in the face with a 7cm knife while peeling an apple. Ren Hanzhi's father recalled: “He was walking to the sofa while peeling the apple. Suddenly he slipped down and his face hit onto the sharp knife. I dared not pull out the knife as my son was screaming”. The nearest hospital referred the 13-year-old to a larger unit. Chief surgeon Peng Liwei, who operated to remove the knife, commented: “It's shocking. The knife, which is more than 20cm long, penetrated 7cm into his face. The surgery was successful and the patient could recover fully in around a month”. (Photo by Rex Features)

Women Wrestlers, Bolivia. Lucha libre (Bolivian wrestling) is one of the most popular sports in the country. Women wrestlers are known as cholitas and have in the last ten years become popular in the sport. Here, Carmen Rosa and Yulia la Pacena perform in a benefit show to raise money for the bathrooms of a school in La Paz, Bolivia, 26 June 2011. (Photo by Daniele Tamagni)

An Iraqi man comforts his 4-year-old son at a regroupment center for POWs of the 101st Airborne Division near An Najaf, Iraq, March 31, 2003. The man was seized in An Najaf with his son and the U.S. military did not want to separate them. (Photo by Jean-Marc Bouju/Associated Press)