Syrian refugee boys play with toy guns at Eminonu district in Istanbul, Turkey, 08 January 2019. (Photo by Sedat Suna/EPA/EFE)

Elementary school sumo wrestlers compete in the sumo ring during the Wanpaku sumo-wrestling tournament in Tokyo, Japan on October 29, 2022. (Photo by Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters)

Three men display their tattoos during the International Malaysia Tattoo Expo in Kuala Lumpur on November 29, 2019. The international tattoo expo is held for the first ime in Kuala Lumpur celebrating that art of tattoo and gathering over a hundred tattoo artists from 40 countries. (Photo by Mohd Rasfan/AFP Photo)

Migrant children run away from clashes with Mexican National Guards after their group crossed the Suchiate River on foot from Guatemala to Mexico, on the riverbank near Ciudad Hidalgo, Mexico, Monday, January 20, 2020. More than a thousand Central American migrants hoping to reach the United States marooned in Guatemala are walking en masse across a river leading to Mexico in an attempt to convince authorities there to allow them passage through the country. (Photo by Santiago Billy/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.

In this May 17, 2015, photo, two men walk past pagodas at Ngwe Saung beach, Pathein township, about 145 miles from Yangon, Myanmar. (Photo by Khin Maung Win/AP Photo)

A young Iraqi shepherdess cools down buffaloes in wastewater filling the dried-up Diyala river which was a tributary of the Tigris, in the Al-Fadiliyah district east of Baghdad, on June 26, 2022. (Photo by Ahmad Al-Rubaye/AFP Photo)

A Muslim boy takes part in Friday prayers on a street outside a mosque in Mumbai, India, June 24, 2016. (Photo by Shailesh Andrade/Reuters)