Actress Elaine C Smith grazes Siusan, the Highland cow, on Glasgow Green to mark being given the Freedom of the City of Glasgow, UK on Thursday, March 6, 2025. (Photo by Jane Barlow/PA Wire)

Spanish director Pedro Almodovar and actress Penelope Cruz chat before the start of the Spanish Film Academy's Goya Awards ceremony in Madrid, Spain, February 4, 2017. (Photo by Paul Hanna/Reuters)

Canada Women's Eight throw coxwain Kristen Kit into the water after winning gold in the Women's Eight final at the Sea Forest Waterway during the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo, Japan on July 30, 2021. (Photo by Piroschka van de Wouw/Reuters)

China's Gu Ailing Eileen waits to see her score as she competes in the freestyle skiing women's freeski slopestyle final run during the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games at the Genting Snow Park H & S Stadium in Zhangjiakou on February 15, 2022. (Photo by Marco Bertorello/AFP Photo)

Chinese Taipei's Hsiao-Wen Huang reacts after winning her fight against Serbia's Nina Radovanovic during their women's fly (48-51kg) quarter-final boxing match during the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games at the Kokugikan Arena in Tokyo on August 1, 2021. (Photo by Ueslei Marcelino/Reuters)

A Senegal fan before the World Cup group A soccer match between Qatar and Senegal, at the Al Thumama Stadium in Doha, Qatar, Friday, November 25, 2022. (Photo by Amr Abdallah Dalsh/Reuters)

Spain's rider Fermin Aldeguer, foreground, leads as Spains rider Manuel Gonzalez Simon falls during Moto2 class race of the MotoGP Malaysian Grand Prix at the Sepang International Circuit in Sepang, Malaysia Sunday, November 12, 2023. (Photo by Vincent Thian/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.