Indigenous people participate in a march commemorating the International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples in Mexico City on August 9, 2023. (Photo by Alfredo Estrella/AFP Photo)

British-American actress Anya Taylor-Joy sticks out her tongue as she poses during a photocall for the film “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” at the 77th edition of the Cannes Film Festival in Cannes, southern France, on May 16, 2024. (Photo by Christophe Simon/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.

“Kids of Sapa”. Four little beautiful Hmong girls from Lao Chai Village, near Sapa, Vietnam. (Photo and caption by Felipe Hanower/National Geographic Traveler Photo Contest)

Riot police clash with demonstrators protesting against proposed pension reforms outside the Congress in Buenos Aires on December 18, 2017. Protesters angry at proposed pension and welfare reforms attacked police close to Argentina's congress building in Buenos Aires on Monday, the second protest in a week to turn violent. Activists lobbed stones, bottles and firecrackers at police as huge crowds demonstrated against pension reforms proposed by the center-right government of President Mauricio Macri. (Photo by Eitan Abramovich/AFP Photo)

Brides display their hands decorated with henna around a bride as she poses for her own photographer during a mass marriage ceremony in which, according to its organizers, 70 Muslim couples took their wedding vows, in Ahmedabad, India, February 11, 2018. (Photo by Amit Dave/Reuters)

Young girls perform in front of the monument to Soviet state founder Vladimir Lenin during the City Day celebrations in Yekaterinburg, Russia on August 19, 2017. (Photo by Maxim Shemetov/Reuters)

Iranians wearing face masks against the Covid-19 coronavirus attends Laylat al-Qadr prayers, one of the holiest nights during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, outside a mosque in the Tehran, on May 13, 2020. (Photo by Atta Kenare/AFP Photo)