Members of the Colombian Military forces pray for members of the military that have lost their lives and peace in the country at the Military Engineers School in Bogota, Colombia on October 14, 2021. (Photo by Juancho Torres/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

Students perform traditional dance as they take part in Pongal celebrations, the Tamil harvest festival, at a college in Chennai on January 10, 2024. (Photo by R. Satish Babu/AFP Photo)

The lead singer of one band talks to two bemused kids at a gig at the “Warzone Centre” in Belfast, Northern Ireland, 1980s. (Photo by Ricky Adam/Mediadrumworld)

French fashion model Christiane Richard wears a bikini while drinking her morning coffee, 1950. (Photo by Nat Farbman/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images)

Boys play with a drainage culvert used for flood control in Las Pinas, Metro Manila February 28, 2016. (Photo by Erik De Castro/Reuters)

Armed Syrian Turkmen villagers are seen near the northern Syrian village of Yamadi, near the Turkish-Syrian border, Syria, November 24, 2015. Turkey shot down a Russian warplane near the Syrian border on Tuesday saying it had repeatedly violated its air space, one of the most serious publicly acknowledged clashes between a NATO member country and Russia for half a century. (Photo by Reuters/Stringer)

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 woman walks inside a building in downtown Havana, Cuba April 21, 2016. (Photo by Alexandre Meneghini/Reuters)