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.

Russian soldiers rehearse ahead of a forthcoming parade on Red Square in Moscow on November 5, 2017 The event will take place on November 7, marking the 76 th anniversary of a 1941 parade, when Red Army soldiers marched past the Kremlin walls towards the front line to fight Nazi Germany troops during World War Two. (Photo by Mladen Antonov/AFP Photo)

French fashion model Christiane Richard wears a bikini while drinking her morning coffee, 1950. (Photo by Nat Farbman/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images)

Boys play with a drainage culvert used for flood control in Las Pinas, Metro Manila February 28, 2016. (Photo by Erik De Castro/Reuters)

Dhruva Aliman does a back somersault as he dismounts from a slackline on the beach at Santa Monica, California on October 19, 2014. Slackline is a balance sport where a line of webbing is adjusted at different levels of tension between two anchor points and participants (called slackers) perform tricks and stunts including somersaults. (Photo by Mark Ralston/AFP Photo)

Fighting Infections (single image) | Fighting Pandemic by Sudipto Das. “It’s exhausting. A tram conductor in Kolkata, India, wears protective clothing from head to toe even in the heat of a summer afternoon. This was when restrictions were easing after India’s first Covid-19 lockdown – public transport was running, but staff were advised to suit up like this. We’ve all grown used to saluting the efforts of healthcare workers, but plenty of other people in public-facing jobs have performed gruelling duties too to keep people safe”. (Photo by Sudipto Das/Wellcome Photography Prize 2021)

In this March 18, 2015 photo, Andrea, better known as Loira, which is the Portuguese word for “blonde”, poses for a portrait in an open-air crack cocaine market, known as a “cracolandia” or crackland where users can buy crack, and smoke it in plain sight, day or night, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Andrea says she is married and has a home, but she keeps returning to crackland to feed her addiction. (Photo by Felipe Dana/AP Photo)

A fellow officer comes to the aid of injured patrolman C.V. Satt, who was pelted with rocks and beer bottles during a clash between police and relief demonstrators in Denver September 23, 1935. (Photo by Henry G. Eisenhand/AP Photo)