Venezuela: An anti-government protester wearing a Guy Fawkes mask throws a molotov cocktail at the Bolivarian National Police during clashes in Caracas, Venezuela, Thursday, April 17, 2014. Opposition protesters have been demonstrating against high crime, high inflation and shortages of basic goods since mid-February. (Photo by Ramon Espinosa/AP Photo)

Los Angeles native Mike Stilkey has always been attracted to painting and drawing not only on vintage paper, record covers and book pages, but on the books themselves. Using a mix of ink, colored pencil, paint and lacquer, Stilkey depicts a melancholic and at times a whimsical cast of characters inhabiting ambiguous spaces and narratives of fantasy and fairy tales. A lingering sense of loss and longing hints at emotional depth and draws the viewer into their introspective thrall with a mixture of capricious poetry, wit, and mystery. (Photo by Mike Stilkey)

Lindsay Knutson plays in the heavy snow with her family dog, Aspen, and daughter Flora Bejblik, 4, cq, as her husband Bob Bejblik, rear left, shovels, Tuesday, March 5, 2013 in southwest Minneapolis. The National Weather Service predicted a two-day snow total of 8 to 12 inches for much of southeastern and east-central Minnesota, including the Twin Cities. (Photo by Elizabeth Flores/AP Photo/The Star Tribune)

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.

Dolly the Chihuahua dog dressed as Alice in Wonderland is photographed during an Alice in Wonderland and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory themed Furbabies Dog Pageant at Jodhpurs Riding School in Tockwith, North Yorkshire, Sunday September 6, 2020. (Photo by Danny Lawson/PA Wire via AP Photo)

The Soyuz MS-17 spacecraft carrying the International Space Station (ISS) expedition 64 crew of NASA astronaut Kate Rubins and Russian cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Sergey Kud-Sverchkov blasts off to the ISS from the Russian-leased Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on October 14, 2020. (Photo by Roscosmos/Handout via AFP Photo)

A Russian Rosguardia (National Guard) soldier stands at a central avenue in front of a restaurant promoter, a day before Sunday's protest in St. Petersburg, Russia, Saturday, January 30, 2021. (Photo by Dmitri Lovetsky/AP Photo)

A view shows a Lun-class Soviet-made ekranoplan, which is a naval craft and a ground-effect vehicle, on the Caspian Sea coastline in Derbent in the Republic of Dagestan, Russia on November 3, 2020. (Photo by Kazbek Basayev/Reuters)