A member of the Gumatj clan performs a ceremonial welcome during the Garma Festival at the Gulkula ceremonial in the Gove Peninsula of the Northern Territory, Australia 03 August 2024. The Garma Festival is Australia’s largest Indigenous gathering, a 4-day celebration of Yolngu life and culture held in remote northeast Arnhem Land. (Photo by Mick Tsikas/EPA)

Four hundred buyers from around the world join 260 diamond manufacturing and trading firms on International Diamond Week as some 1,500 people are expected to trade more than billion of polished diamonds this week in Ramat Gan, Israel on February 16, 2016. The Israel Diamond Exchange is considered the most secure in the world, covering an area of 100,000 square meters with 3,500 bourse members. (Photo by Nir Alon via ZUMA Wire)

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.

Mug shot of De Gracy (sic) and Edward Dalton. Details unknown. Central Police Station, Sydney, around 1920. (Photo by NSW Police Forensic Photography Archive, Justice & Police Museum, Histiric Houses Trust of NSW)

38 year old Prabhat Sinha, from Assam, carries a load of coal weighing 60kg's, supported by a head-strap, as he ascends the staircase of a coal mine on April 16, 2011 near the village of Khliehriat, in the district of Jaintia Hills, India. (Photo by Daniel Berehulak/Getty Images)

A fellow officer comes to the aid of injured patrolman C.V. Satt, who was pelted with rocks and beer bottles during a clash between police and relief demonstrators in Denver September 23, 1935. (Photo by Henry G. Eisenhand/AP Photo)

Confiscated rare and protected wildlife products such as these stuffed Sumatran tiger skins are burned and destroyed during a ceremony by government forestry and wildlife officials in Banda Aceh, Aceh province, Indonesia May 23, 2016 in this photo taken by Antara Foto. (Photo by Irwansyah Putra/Reuters/Antara Foto)

Faith Lynch (L) and Molly Beck (R) pose for a photo at Hackney Bridge as fans gather to watch a live broadcast of the semi-final match between England and Denmark on July 07, 2021 in London, England. England has reached the semi-finals of the UEFA European Football Championship 2020 hoping to make the final for the first time in the history of the competition. (Photo by Leon Neal/Getty Images)