A puffin swims underwater in search for fish off the coast of the Farne Islands in Northumberland, North East England in the last decade of July 2025. (Photo by Brian Matthews/Solent News & Photo Agency)

Folk dancers in Ahmedabad, western India, rehearsing on September 14, 2025 for the Hindu festival of Navaratri, which begins next week. (Photo by Sam Panthaky/Getty Images)

A woman walks past debris as Super Typhoon Ragasa hits the Central district in Hong Kong on September 24, 2025. Hong Kong's weather service issued the highest level of typhoon warning in the early hours, as Super Typhoon Ragasa brought powerful winds and lashing rain to the southern Chinese coast. (Photo by Peter Parks/AFP Photo)

A trio poses for a photo in front of the art installation Surrender (Flag) by John Gerrard of Ireland displayed in a courtyard of the Palacio de San Francisco, as part of the first art biennial in Bogota, Colombia, Tuesday, September 23, 2025. (Photo by Fernando Vergara/AP Photo)

A diver dressed in a Santa Claus costume swims with a penguin at Sunshine Aquarium during preparations for the upcoming Christmas special event in Tokyo on December 1, 2025. (Photo by Kazuhiro Nogi/AFP via Getty Images)

Entitled Feasting at Sunset, this photo of a Brandt’s cormorant among pilchards was the winner of the Birds in the Environment category in the 2025 Bird Photographer of the Year competition. (Photo by Franco Banfi/The Guardian)

Fashion model Irina Shayk prepares backstage at the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show 2025 on October 15, 2025 in New York City. (Photo by Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for Victoria's Secret)

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.