A Palestinian sits among the rubble of buildings destroyed during the Israeli offensive, amid a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on February 4, 2025. (Photo by Hatem Khaled/Reuters)

Costume details featuring Joao Candido, a black sailor who led a revolt against the physical punishment of Brazilian Navy soldiers at the beginning of the 20th century, lie inside the Paraíso do Tuiuti Samba school at the Samba City complex in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Tuesday, January 16, 2024. Samba schools are gearing up for this year's Carnival, scheduled from Feb. 9-17. (Photo by Bruna Prado/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.

A woman kneels down to pray at a “Pray and swipe right” event organised by online dating app Tinder, with social-distancing stickers featuring its flame logo on the praying ground, a photo booth where people can take profile pictures for their new accounts, and free offering sets, at the Trimuriti shrine on Valentine's Day in Bangkok, Thailand February 14, 2022. (Photo by Soe Zeya Tun/Reuters)

American singer and songwriter Ava Max gestures as she arrives at the 2021 iHeartRadio Music Awards at Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles, California, U.S., May 27, 2021. (Photo by Mario Anzuoni/Reuters)

An infrared portrait from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope which shows generations of stars is seen in this undated NASA handout image released February 14, 2013. In this wispy star-forming region, called W5, the oldest stars can be seen as blue dots in the centers of the two hollow cavities (other blue dots are background and foreground stars not associated with the region). Red shows heated dust that pervades the region's cavities, while green highlights dense clouds. (Photo by NASA/Reuters/JPL-Caltech/Harvard-Smithsonian/Handout)

Grumpy Cat attends the “Grumpy Cat: A Grumpy Book” Book Event at Bookends Bookstore on October 16, 2013 in Ridgewood, New Jersey. (Photo by Michael N. Todaro/WireImage)

A small section of the expanding remains of the Veil Nebula, a massive star that exploded about 8,000 years ago. The entire nebula is 110 light-years across, covering six full moons on the sky as seen from Earth, and resides about 2,100 light-years away in the constellation Cygnus, the Swan. Image taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. Released September 24, 2015. (Photo by Reuters/NASA/ESA/Hubble Heritage Team)