Bedouin breeders fix a robot jockey mounted on a camel before the 18th International Camel Racing festival at the Sarabium desert in Ismailia, Egypt, March 12, 2019. Several Gulf countries have banned child jockeys from the traditional Bedouin sport after rights groups said the youngsters were often injured and some had been abducted or sold by their families. (Photo by Amr Abdallah Dalsh/Reuters)

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.

Aisha, 15, (L) (who asked to withhold her last name), a Syrian refugee from Raqqa, waits with a fellow refugee while harvesting cannabis in the Bekaa valley, Lebanon October 19, 2015. Syrian refugees work to harvest and process spiky-leafed cannabis plants in neighbouring Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley. Often farmers of cotton and wheat back home in Raqqa province – now the de facto capital of Islamic State – the conflict in Syria drove them to seek safety in a region where Syrian migrant workers used to spend a few months a year before returning home. (Photo by Alia Haju/Reuters)

A woman waters the plants outside her house in an alley at a slum in Mumbai October 28, 2014. (Photo by Danish Siddiqui/Reuters)

A mahout (elephant driver) walks a baby elephant across the city streets at night September 27, 2008 in Bangkok, Thailand. (Photo Paula Bronstein/Getty Images)

Students of Yuba Pratibha School, wearing a face shield and masks at school during a coronavirus pandemic in Kathmandu, Nepal, 26 November 2020. The head Teacher of Yuba Pratibha School, Yanga Raj Dahal, started to conduct classes for students, who can’t afford and attend online classes, with strict sanitary regime, providing also free face masks and shields for students. However majority of schools have been conducting online classes in Nepal from 19 March 2020 as part of precautionary measures against the spread of the coronavirus Covid-19. (Photo by Narendra Shrestha/EPA/EFE)

A resident looks at a parade marking the 496th anniversary of Panama City, Panama August 15, 2015. Modern-day Panama City includes the historical ruins of the original Panama Viejo settlement founded on August 15, 1519 by Spaniard Pedro Arias Davila, according to local media. (Photo by Carlos Jasso/Reuters)

An adult helps a young girl light a cigarette as a band plays in the background in the village of Vale de Salgueiro, northern Portugal, during the local Kings' Feast Friday, January 5, 2018. The village's Epiphany celebrations, called Kings' Feast, feature a tradition that each year causes an outcry among outsiders: parents encourage their children, some as young as 5, to smoke cigarettes. (Photo by Armando Franca/AP Photo)