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 girl bathes to cool off herself with water that is leaking from a broken pipe valve on a hot summer day on the outskirts of Ahmedabad, India, May 18, 2015. (Photo by Amit Dave/Reuters)

Thomas Thwaites of the United Kingdom accepts the 2016 Ig Nobel Prize in Biology for “creating prosthetic extensions of his limbs that allowed him to move in the manner of, and spend time roaming the hills in the company of, goats” during the 26th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S. September 22, 2016. (Photo by Brian Snyder/Reuters)

The burning Polaris of Jose Antonio Blangino of Argentina sits in the sand dunes during stage one of the 2012 Dakar Rally from Mar Del Plata to Santa Rosa de la Pampa on January 1, 2012 in Santa Rosa de la Pampa, Argentina. (Photo by Bryn Lennon/Getty Images)

A woman sentenced to starvation death...

A horse smiles at the camera. See the beautiful images of horses gleefully playing in Iceland mountain ranges. The horses have been spotted smiling and cuddling in remote locations across the nation. (Photo by Bragi J. Ingibergsson/Caters News)

Thorsten Mowes has a more intimate knowledge of the worlds most famous monuments than perhaps anyone else on the planet – because hes spent his entire career cleaning them. As a cultural cleaning expert with nearly 25 years experience, he has been commissioned to make wonders all over the world shine like new – from the London Eye to Christ the Redeemer. The places he has been to, stood on top of, or even hung halfway down include Mount Rushmore and the Space Needle in America, the London Eye, the Statue of Christ in Brazil and the Forbidden City in China. Here: A man cleans a part of Mount Rushmore. (Photo by Caters News Agency)

Female female male threesome. My bit on the side is my best male friend. (Photo by Laoshi/Getty Images)