Mel Harris shouts whilst a pick up truck belches smoke on the final night of the Deni Ute Muster in Deniliquin, New South Wales, Australia, October 1, 2016. In the small rural town of Deniliquin, on the edge of Australia's vast outback, around 20,000 “ute” lovers gathered in the mud to champion a national treasure deemed surplus to requirements by the big car manufacturers. (Photo by Jason Reed/Reuters)

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 hungry tiger was almost left with a ROARing headache – after nearly colliding into a pane of glass as it dived underwater for a slab of meat. (Photo by Caters News)

Breath at sunset, captures a sea turtle at a dive site called Black Rock. Kāʻanapali, Hawaiʻi, August 2013. (Photo by Christopher Doherty/Smithsonian.com)

Natalie Dormer attends the mtvU Fandom Awards at MTV Fan Fest at Comic-Con, July 24, 2014, in San Diego. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision for MTV/AP Images)

A pro-democracy demonstrator fights with a Soviet soldier on top of a tank parked in front of the Russian Federation building on August 19, 1991, after a coup toppled Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev. The same day, thousands in Moscow, Leningrad, and other cities answered Russian Republic President Boris Yeltsin's call to raise barricades against tanks and troops. (Dima Tanin/AFP/Getty Images)

A man crosses a mud-covered trail carrying his wife on his back at a flooded Han River park in Seoul, South Korea, August 4, 2020. (Photo by Kim Hong-Ji/Reuters)

A girl from the Tharu community takes part in a ritual during the Shama Chakewa festival to honor the relationship between brothers and sisters in Kathmandu on November 8, 2022. (Photo by Skanda Gautam/ZUMA Press Wire/Rex Features/Shutterstock)