The Rio de Janeiro Olympics kick off on August 5 for some two weeks of competitive games drawing athletes as well as audiences from around the world. As they prepare to cover the event, Reuters photographers look back on their favourite pictures from past Olympics where they captured the action on the ground as well as the participants' tears and joy that followed. (Photo by Lucy Nicholson/Reuters)

A Russian Soyuz 2.1a rocket carrying Lomonosov, Aist-2D and SamSat-218 satellites lifts off from the launch pad at the new Vostochny Cosmodrome outside the city of Uglegorsk, about 200 kilometers (125 miles) from the city of Blagoveshchensk in the far eastern Amur region Thursday, April 28, 2016. The launch of the first rocket from Russia's new space facility has been delayed after a last-minute problem. (Photo by Kirill Kudryavtsev/Pool Photo via AP Photo)

American soldiers with the 173rd Airborne Brigade Battle Company, on a battalion-wide mission in the Korengal Valley, looking for caves, weapons caches and known Taliban leaders, 2007. Tanner Stichter tends to Spc. Carl Vandeberge in the bushes moments after Vandeberge was shot in the stomach during a Taliban ambush, which killed one soldier and wounded two others. (Photo by Lynsey Addario)

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.

US model Binx Walton strutted out with a boob exposed and only a glittery love heart ­protecting her modesty in Anthony Vaccarello’s debut show for Saint ­Laurent on September 27, 2016. The Sun found out how the trend measured up on trip to the shops. Here: Isabella Besque 21 from London tries out the nipple cover look as seen Paris Fashion week on the streets of London, England on October 7, 2016. (Photo by Stewart Williams/The Sun)

David Jackson (C), who voted for Donald Trump, has a discussion with Ryan Graves (L) and Anna Kaminski (R) visiting from Oamaha, Nebraska during a rally against the election of Republican Donald Trump as President of the United States in downtown Indianapolis, Indiana, U.S., November 12, 2016. (Photo by Clay Lomneth/Reuters)

A Iraqi soldier of the 9th division is seen within a Humvee in Shyma district in Mosul, Iraq, Tuesday, December 6, 2016. Iraqi forces, backed by the U.S.-led international coalition, launched a campaign in October to retake Mosul, the country's second largest city and IS's last major urban bastion in Iraq. (Photo by Manu Brabo/AP Photo)

Dancers perform during the Opening Ceremony of the Rio 2016 Olympic Games at Maracana Stadium on August 5, 2016 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. (Photo by Jamie Squire/Getty Images)