People look at a dead pilot whale on a beach in Panadura on November 3, 2020. Rescuers and volunteers were racing since November 2 to save about 100 pilot whales stranded on Sri Lanka's western coast in the island nation's biggest-ever mass beaching. (Photo by Lakruwan Wanniarachchi/AFP Photo)

Migrants, part of a caravan traveling en route to the United States, carry an anteater that was hit by a car, according to them, as they walk on the road that links Arriaga and Tapanatepec, near Arriaga, Mexico, November 5, 2018. (Photo by Carlos Garcia Rawlins/Reuters)

This picture taken on May 31, 2018 shows a villager walking between abandoned houses covered with overgrown vegetation in Houtouwan on Shengshan island, China' s eastern Zhejiang province. Houtouwan was a thriving fishing community of sturdy brick homes that climb up the steeply hilled island of Shenghshan, but is now abandoned, with entire houses completely overgrown as if vacuum- sealed in a lush layer of green. (Photo by Johannes Eisele/AFP 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.

A brilliant sunset makes for a fun silhouette picture by jumping between sand bars at Shi Shi Beach on the Olympic Peninsula Friday July 17, 2015. (Photo by Bettina Hansen/The Seattle Times)

Government officials in protective suits carry a mock coffin as they walk around a busy intersection during a coronavirus awareness campaign to remind people of the risk of contracting COVID-19 and to always obey health protocols to curb the spread of the outbreak in Jakarta, Indonesia, Friday, August 28, 2020. (Photo by Dita Alangkara/AP Photo)

People take pictures with public art instalation titled “GIANTS: Rising Up” by the French artist JR, at Harbour City, Hong Kong, China on March 16, 2023. (Photo by Lam Yik/Reuters)

WWII veterans attend a ceremony to place tobacco pouches of soil from WWII mass graves of Red Army soldiers abroad, in the custody of the Central Armed Forces Museum in Moscow, Russia on March 6, 2020. The grave soil has been brought from Abkhazia, Germany, Kyrgyzstan, US, Ukraine, France, Estonia, Mongolia, Bulgaria, UK, Uzbekistan and South Ossetia. (Photo by Alexander Shcherbak/TASS)