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.

Bronze whaler shark (Carcharhinus brachyurus), caught in traditional seine net and released by fisherman, Muizenberg beach, Cape Town, South Africa on October 11, 2016. Action shots have captured fishermen trying to free a potentially deadly Bronze Whaler shark who was caught in their nets. The incredible images show the eight-foot-long 500-pound predator lunging its mouth towards the fishermen who are desperately trying to pull it back into the safety of the sea by its tail. Eventually they succeeded. (Photo by Chris and Monique Fallows/NPL)

U.S. Marines, left, and South Korean Marines, wearing blue headbands on their helmets, take positions after landing on the beach during the joint military combined amphibious exercise, called Ssangyong, part of the Key Resolve and Foal Eagle military exercises, in Pohang, South Korea, Saturday, March 12, 2016. North Korea said Saturday its military is ready to pre-emptively attack and “liberate” the South in its latest outburst against the annual joint military drills by the United States and South Korea. (Photo by Kim Jun-bum/Yonhap via AP Photo)

View of an egg fried on the pavement in Pozo Hondo, Santiago del Estero, Argentina on January 23, 2016, while the real feel was 57 degrees Celsius. Pozo Hondo's Mayor Claudio Nicolau fried an egg on the pavement of the main square of the city Saturday. (Photo by AFP Photo/Stringer)

Students pose for a picture with a 3- D optical illusion artwork of a devastated cityscape in Aleppo, Syria at the campus of the Meiji University in Tokyo on November 18, 2016. The Japanese branch of the human rights organisation Amnesty International displayed the artwork to encourage people to think about the Syrian civil war. (Photo by Toshifumi Kitamura/AFP Photo)

A jogger runs along Bregagh Road at Dark Hedges, Armoy, Northern Ireland, Wednesday, February 10, 2016. Road markings have been painted by mistake on the world famous road that features the Dark Hedges tree lined road which was made famous by the Game of Thrones and is now a massive tourist attraction. (Photo by Peter Morrison/AP Photo)

The “EMIEW3” robot (R) demonstrates communicating with a visitor during a press preview in Tokyo on April 8, 2016. Japanese electronics giant Hitachi unveiled its humanoid customer service and guidance robot “EMIEW3” and “remote brain” robotics IT platform. (Photo by Toshifumi Kitamura/AFP Photo)

In this Wednesday, July 23, 2014 file photo, Omaha photographer Lane Hickenbottom photographs the night sky in a pasture near Callaway, Neb. With no moon in the sky, the Milky Way was visible to the naked eye. More than one-third of the world’s population can no longer see the Milky Way because of man-made lights, according to a scientific paper by Light Pollution Science and Technology Institute's Fabio Falchi and his team members, published on Friday, June 10, 2016. (Photo by Travis Heying/The Wichita Eagle via AP Photo)