Teachers carry children away from Briarwood Elementary school after the tornado destroyed the school in south Oklahoma City. (Photo by Paul Hellstern/The Oklahoman)

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.

A three month old white Bengal female tiger cub looks around her enclosure at the Buenos Aires Zoo, Argentina, Wednesday, April 16, 2014. Cleo, a captive Bengal white tiger at the zoo, gave birth to two females and one male white tiger cubs on January 16, 2014. (Photo by Natacha Pisarenko/AP Photo)

Chloe Goodman attending the Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them European Premiere at Leicester Square, London. (Photo by Ian West/PA Images via Getty Images)

Madison Chock and Evan Bates of the U.S. compete during the ice dance short dance program at the ISU World Team Trophy in Figure Skating in Tokyo April 16, 2015. (Photo by Yuya Shino/Reuters)

A Rohingya migrant who arrived in Indonesia by boat cries while speaking on a mobile phone with a relative in Malaysia, at a temporary shelter in Kuala Langsa in Indonesia's Aceh Province May 16, 2015. Nearly 800 migrants were brought ashore in Indonesia on Friday, but other vessels crammed with them were sent back to sea despite a United Nations call to rescue thousands adrift in Southeast Asian waters with dwindling food and water. Thousands of Rohingya Muslims fleeing Myanmar and Bangladesh are stranded on boats as regional governments block them from landing. (Photo by Roni Bintang/Reuters)

Tourists watch the sunrise and pray outside a church on the summit of Mount Moses, near the city of Saint Catherine, in the Sinai Peninsula, south of Egypt, December 9, 2015. (Photo by Amr Abdallah Dalsh/Reuters)

A combination picture shows Aleppo's Umayyad mosque, Syria, before it was damaged on March 12, 2009 (top) and after it was damaged (bottom) December 13, 2016. (Photo by Omar Sanadiki/Reuters)