Workers stir hundreds of large ceramic pots as they spend months making a traditional soy sauce on October 14, 2020. Arranged in rows, the containers can hold up to 50 litres of Ban Soy sauce. During the drawn out process the sauce is stirred every two days for two to six months. Ban Yen Nhan village in the Hung Yen Province of Vietnam is famous for its traditional and distinctive method of making the sauce. (Photo by Nguyen Quy/Solent News)

Devotees of Santa Muerte visit her shrine in the Tepito neighborhood on the eve of the Day of the Dead in Mexico City, Mexico on October 31, 2022. (Photo by Gustavo Graf/Reuters)

South African singer and songwriter Tyla poses with the award for Best Afrobeats for “Water” during the 2024 MTV Video Music Awards in Elmont, New York, U.S., September 11, 2024. (Photo by Andrew Kelly/Reuters)

A woman poses for a photo shoot with the blossom flowers decorated at Ritan Park during the Spring season in Beijing, Sunday, March 30, 2025. (Photo by Andy Wong/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.

The new Toyota Camry Hybrid LE is parked next to the redesigned 2012 Camry SE after the unveiling event on the Paramount Studios lot on August 23, 2011 in Hollywood, California. The five-seat Camry SE and the Hybrid XLE sedans go on sale in December. (Photo by Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images)

A stag reacts as magpies and crows fuss over a resting stag as they feed on ticks from the fur of the deer herd roaming on the Ashton Court Estate, Bristol, in crisp and cold Autumnal weather on November 23, 2020. (Photo by Ben Birchall/PA Images via Getty Images)

Female Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga fighters watch on as they release a bear into the wild in the Gara Mountains near the northern Iraqi city of Dohuk on March 4, 2018, after Iraqi Kurdish Animal rights activists from a local NGO rescued it from a private home. (Photo by Safin Hamed/AFP Photo)