In this photo taken Sunday, March 12, 2017, a girl Abuk walks home with her brothers and friends after collecting clean water from a water point four kilometers away from her home, in Aweil, in South Sudan. As World Water Day approaches on March 22, more than 5 million people in South Sudan, do not have access to safe, clean water, compounding the problems of famine and civil war, according to the UNICEF. (Photo by Mackenzie Knowles-Coursin/UNICEF via 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.

Tropical acrobatics by Adrià López Baucells in Manaus, Brazil. An unidentified South American marsupial, although the characteristic black markings on its face indicate it may be a mouse opossum. These small creatures are nocturnal and feed on bugs, fruit and bird eggs. (Photo by Adrià López Baucells/2019 Royal Society of Biology Photography Competition)

Dani tribeswoman smokes a cigarette and shows her amputated fingers in, Western New Guinea, Indonesia, August 2016. Deep in the highlands of Western New Guinea, Indonesia, lives one of the world’s most isolated tribes. Known as the Dani people, the tribe was unwittingly discovered by American philanthropist, Richard Archbold, after an expedition in 1938. (Photo by Teh Han Lin/Barcroft Images)

These Eurasian Otters seem ready for any danger as they all stand up on thier hind legs alert to any threats near to the English river bank. Amateur photographer and retired MOD worker Tony Moir, 57, spotted the otters whilst looking for kingfishers to photograph near the river Trent in East Yorkshire, UK. He was able to take just a couple of pictures before the excited animals spotted the photographer and ran away. (Photo by Tony Moir/Solent News)

Boards stand lined up at the Rocinha Surf Association, ASR, headquarters at Rocinha slum in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Thursday, July 2, 2015. ASR has given free lessons to over 2,000 children from Rio's shantytowns in the hopes of keeping the boys, who are mostly in their early teens and a few girls occupied by the sport and off the streets. (Photo by Felipe Dana/AP Photo)

In this September 10, 2016 picture, a girl takes pictures of a fellow contestant while warming up backstage before competing in the Romania Miss Pole Dance Contest, ahead of the finals of the Pole Sport&Fitness World Championship 2016 in Bucharest, Romania. (Photo by Vadim Ghirda/AP Photo)

A ballet student poses for a friend to take photos, at the national ballet school in Havana, Cuba, Thursday, December 12, 2019. The Soviet-style system that recruits children into a system of increasingly selective state dance schools has produced hundreds of elite dancers including Lorna Feijoo, Rolando Sarabia, Taras Domitro, Anette Delgado and Carlos Acosta. (Photo by Ramon Espinosa/AP Photo)