A portrait of a young woman who died during a Russian attack is pictured with flowers next to her fresh grave in the cemetery of in Mykolaiv, southern Ukraine, on March 21, 2022. (Photo by Bulent Kilic/AFP Photo)

American actress and model Ming-Na Wen attends the ceremony honoring her with a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in Hollywood, California on May 30, 2023. (Photo by Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images for Disney)

A member of indigenous peoples and organizations linked to indigenous movements are holding a demonstration in the center of Manaus, Amazonas, Brazil, 30 May 2023. Indigenous people protested against a bill that is being processed in Congress that could make it difficult to demarcate native lands. (Photo by Raphael Alves/EPA/EFE)

Visitors enjoy a walk accross a suspension bridge for the pedestrians that is the longest such construction in the world shortly after its official opening at a mountain resort in Dolni Morava, Czech Republic, Friday, May 13, 2022. The 721-meter (2,365 feet) long bridge is built at the altitude of more than 1,100 meters above the sea level. It connects two ridges of the mountains up to 95 meters above a valley between them. (Photo by David W. Cerny/Reuters)

Three Iranian women bathe in the sea on a shore of the Caspian sea in the city of Babolsar north of Tehran, on July 14, 2023 in Babolsar, Iran. The 7th National Festival of Sand Sculptures is being held in this town on the edge of the Caspian Sea. (Photo by Majid Saeedi/Getty Images)

A “Free Syrian Army” fighter in the Bustan Pasha neighborhood of Aleppo, Syria, August 21, 2013. (Photo by James Lawler Duggan)

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.

“Lobsang and 66 fellow monks were imprisoned in 1959. When released 21 years later, he was one of only three survivors. While in prison his best friend, a rinpoche, died in his arms. Tensin was later discovered to be the reincarnation of that friend. Lobsang said there are so many characteristics of his old friend in the young boy”. (Photo and caption by Phil Borges)