«Sharon Wild (from the series The Valley)», 2001. Larry Sultan grew up in California’s San Fernando Valley, which was a source of inspiration for a number of his projects. His series The Valley (2004) addresses the use of ordinary homes as sets for pornographic films, and asks why the ideal of middle-class domesticity lends itself to this most curious form of cultural appropriation. (Photo by Larry Sultan)

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.

Children are engulfed by foam during the Bubble Show event in Beijing, China, Sunday, June 26, 2016. Thousands of residents enjoy colored foam churned out by machines along a running track at the event designed for children and parents' interaction. (Photo by Ng Han Guan/AP Photo)

A masked reveller parades through the streets on the first day of the carnival season in Lucerne, Switzerland, 12 February 2015. In the background the well known Kappellbruecke bridge. (Photo by Alexandra Wey/EPA)

A boy runs with a burning barrel soaked in tar at the annual Ottery St Mary tar barrel festival on November 5, 2015 in Ottery St. Mary, England. The tradition, which is over 400 years old, sees competitors (who must have been born in the town to take part) running with burning barrels on their backs through the village, until the heat becomes too unbearable or the barrel breaks down, starting with junior barrels carried by children and continuing all evening with ever larger and larger barrels. The event, which has been threatened with closure on previous years due to increasing public liability insurance costs, raises thousands of pounds for charity and attracts spectators from around the world. (Photo by Matt Cardy/Getty Images)

A woman squeezes between two public buses in downtown Lima, March 17, 2014. Bogota and two other Latin American capitals – Mexico City, and Lima in Peru – were named as the three capitals with the least safe transport systems for women in the Thomson Reuters Foundation poll of more than 6,550 women and gender and city planning experts. Women in Latin America say they face a wide range of daily threats on public transport, and not enough is done to ensure their safety. (Photo by Enrique Castro-Mendivil/Reuters)

Antonio Banderas attends the photocall for “Pain And Glory (Dolor Y Gloria/Douleur Et Glorie)” during the 72nd annual Cannes Film Festival on May 18, 2019 in Cannes, France. (Photo by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images)

Personal trainer, Denise Austin, and Katie Austin arrive at the ESPY Awards at the Microsoft Theater on Wednesday, July 13, 2016, in Los Angeles. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP Photo)