A soldier from the South Korean army special forces breaks stone plates with her head during a martial arts demonstration for Memorial Day at Korea War Memorial Museum in Seoul, South Korea, Monday, June 6, 2016.(Photo by Ahn Young-joon/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.

Two stags fight in a wildlife park in Aurach near Kitzbuehel, in the Austrian province of Tyrol. (Photo by Kerstin Joensson/Associated Press)

“Romain de Tirtoff (23 November 1892 – 21 April 1990) was a Russian-born French artist and designer known by the pseudonym Erté, the French pronunciation of his initials, R.T. He was a diversely talented 20th-century artist and designer who flourished in an array of fields, including fashion, jewellery, graphic arts, costume and set design for film, theatre, and opera, and interior decor”. – Wikipedia. Photo: Romain de Tirtoff (Erte) – “Symphony In Black” (please click to enlarge).

An Argentina soccer fan watches the team lose to Saudi Arabia at a World Cup Group C soccer match, played on a large screen in the Palermo neighborhood of Buenos, Aires, Argentina, early Tuesday, November 22, 2022. (Photo by Gustavo Garello/AP Photo)

Two men try to load their just purchased Samsung 55" TV into a car, at a Best Buy store in Fairfax, Virginia on November 26, 2015, on a Black Friday sale that started a day earlier during Thanksgiving evening. The US holiday shopping season kicks off with "Black Friday" – the day after the Thanksgiving holiday – with a frenzy expected at stores around the country as retailers slash prices. (Photo by Paul J. Richards/AFP Photo)

South Korean actress singers Tiffany (R) and Seohyun react in front of an official camera on the red carpet during 2015 Mnet Asian Music Awards (MAMA) in Hong Kong, China December 2, 2015. (Photo by Bobby Yip/Reuters)

A street artist dances tango in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Tuesday, January 20, 2015. Tango is a partner dance that originated in the 1890's along the Rio de la Plata, the border between Uruguay and Argentina. UNESCO approved in 2009, a joint proposal by the two nations to include the dance in its Intangible Cultural Heritage List. (Photo by Rodrigo Abd/AP Photo)