“You” star, American actress Victoria Pedretti locks lips with American actor Fred Hechinger in New York City on February 26, 2024. (Photo by The Image Direct)

Actor Will Smith attends the Los Angeles Premiere of Columbia Pictures' “Bad Boys: Ride Or Die” at the TCL Chinese Theater on May 30, 2024 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Eric Charbonneau/Getty Images for Sony Pictures)

American actor Tom Cruise was seen jumping from a water taxi on the set of “Mission: Impossible 7” on October 20, 2020 in Venice, Italy. (Photo by Splash News and Pictures)

Star of Cabaret, English actor Eddie Redmayne attends The Olivier Awards 2022 with MasterCard at the Royal Albert Hall on April 10, 2022 in London, England. (Photo by David Levene/The Guardian)

Soldiers from 12 Mechanized Brigade perform a simulated casualty evacuation at the Ministry of Defence training area at Copehill Down on Salisbury Plain on March 9, 2012 in Wiltshire, England. The Defence Secretary Philip Hammond visited the military facility to meet soldiers from the Brigade who are shortly to deploy to Afghanistan for Operation Herrick 16, and troops from the 3rd Battalion, the Yorkshire regiment which lost five of the six men who died this week in the deadliest single attack in Afghanistan since 2001. (Photo by Matt Cardy/Getty Images)

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.

(L-R) Actors Oscar Sinela, Luis Fernandez, Ursula Corbero, Amaia Salamanca, Maxi Iglesias and Alba Ribas attend “XP3D” premiere at the Callao cinema on December 27, 2011 in Madrid, Spain. (Photo by Carlos Alvarez/Getty Images)

Actors perform a scene in a film directed by Humam Husari in the rebel-held besieged town of Zamalka, in the Damascus suburbs, Syria September 19, 2016. (Photo by Bassam Khabieh/Reuters)