A group of youngsters dressed as ghouls and zombies for Halloween parade in downtown Lisbon, Portugal, Friday, October 31, 2014. (Photo by Francisco Seco/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.

An airplane is silhouetted at sunrise, seen from the suburb of Saint-Cloud, near Paris, France, 08 December 2016. Paris is undergoing a third day pollution spike, prompting the city to limit vehicle circulation. (Photo by Ian Langsdon/EPA)

Masai women dressed in traditional clothes wear surgical masks as they wait for a ceremony marking World Elephant Day in the Amboseli National Park, Kenya, August 12, 2020. (Photo by Baz Ratner/Reuters)

A woman pushes a cart during a protest against racial inequality and call for defunding of Seattle police, in Seattle downtown, Washington, U.S. June 14, 2020. (Photo by Goran Tomasevic/Reuters)

Allison Callender and Kent Willis, members of Mekanix Gym, a total wellness center, take a cold plunge in ice after a workout at the gym's Shadow Sanctuary facility during hot weather in Houston, Texas, U.S., July 19, 2023. (Photo by Adrees Latif/Reuters)

Two life-size Victorian style dolls shocked Londoners morning December 3, 2015 as the creepy pair popped up at commuter hotspots across the capital to mark the launch of the world's first psychological theme park ride created by Derren Brown, coming to Thorpe Park Resort in 2016. (Photo by Matt Alexander/PA Wire)

Wide-angle category winner. Part of the Illusion by Marcus Blatchford (UK). Location: National Dive & Activity Centre, Chepstow, Wales. “This is the deepest inland dive centre in the UK. The dive plan was to explore the deep end, but this time I dived ‘unplugged’ (without my strobes). With the exception of this change to my camera technique, there were no planned shots I wanted to achieve – just a fun dive with ad-hoc photos along the way. Shortly after this photo was captured, in 6C water and two hours of decompression ahead of us, we turned and started the long ascent back to the surface”. (Photo by Marcus Blatchford/Underwater Photographer of the Year 2016)