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.

An Iraqi man comforts his 4-year-old son at a regroupment center for POWs of the 101st Airborne Division near An Najaf, Iraq, March 31, 2003. The man was seized in An Najaf with his son and the U.S. military did not want to separate them. (Photo by Jean-Marc Bouju/Associated Press)

The first Australian Kangaroo gold coin issued by The Perth Mint in 1989 featured an iconic bounding Red Kangaroo. Designed by Dr Stuart Devlin AO CMG, goldsmith and jeweller to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, this classic creation has since been featured on the kilo release each year in the highly sought-after bullion series.

A visitor feeds a food pellet to a giraffe in the Giraffe Centre in Nairobi, Kenya January 15, 2017. (Photo by Goran Tomasevic/Reuters)

A detailed view of the BMW 1600 during the The 40th Antwerp Classic Salon run by SIHA Salons Automobiles and held at Antwerp EXPO Halls on March 3, 2017 in Antwerpen, Belgium. (Photo by Dean Mouhtaropoulos/Getty Images)

College students take shelter at a traffic point as a man paddles his rickshaw through a flooded road during heavy rain in Guwahati, India, June 13, 2017. (Photo by Anuwar Hazarika/Reuters)

Indian children help to push an auto rickshaw along a flooded street after heavy rain in Jalandhar on June 29, 2017, as the monsoon season begins. (Photo by Shammi Mehra/AFP Photo)