In this April 7, 2015 photo, a tourist peers through the door of a jail cell inside the now empty Garcia Moreno prison during a guided tour for the public in Quito, Ecuador. According to tour guides, this cell was nicknamed “Los Polillas”, or “The Moths”. Here, in a room designed to hold two prisoners, about 15 inmates with drug addictions were locked in overnight by the prison gangs that controlled daily life. The locked-in prisoners were also known to prostitute themselves to get access to drugs. (Photo by Dolores Ochoa/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.

Waura Indians wrestle during this year's “quarup”, a ritual held over several days to honour in death a person of great importance to them, in Xingu National Park, Mato Grosso State, Brazil August 25, 2013. (Photo by Ueslei Marcelino/Reuters)

The hard-worked hands of Jacaba Coaquira, 80, holding the green beans she grew on her land. This year the production of her land was affected by lack of rain and early cold weather that froze the crops before they finished growing. Santiago de Okola, Bolivia. (Photo by Renée C. Byer/Living on a Dollar a Day)

An Israeli spectator watches a giant T-Rex balloon during the Purim parade festival in Petah Tikva, Israel, Thursday, March 24, 2016. The Jewish holiday of Purim commemorates the Jews' salvation from genocide in ancient Persia, as recounted in the Book of Esther. (Photo by Oded Balilty/AP Photo)

Alexandr Kudlay, 33, and Viktoria Pustovitova, 28, have breakfast in their apartment in Kharkiv, Ukraine on March 5, 2021. Tired of occasional break-ups, this Ukrainian couple found an unusual solution to stay inseparable. On St. Valentine's Day, they decided to handcuff their hands together for three months and began documenting their experience on social media. (Photo by Gleb Garanich/Reuters)

Store owner Sidney Graham removes storm damage debris at Living Loved Lash and Body Studio on West Walnut Avenue Sunday, May 26, 2024, in Rogers, Ark. Powerful storms left a wide trail of destruction across Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas. (Photo by Charlie Kaijo/The Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette via AP Photo)

African migrants stranded in Costa Rica walk near garbage on the Inter-American highway at the border between Costa Rica and Nicaragua, in Penas Blancas, Costa Rica, September 8, 2016. (Photo by Juan Carlos Ulate/Reuters)