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.

Hungarian pilot and European champion Zoltan Veres flies under the oldest Hungarian bridge, the “Lanchid” (Chain Bridge) with his “MXS” type plane on May 1, 2014 during a Red Bull flying and car show around the Danube River of Budapest downtown. (Photo by Attila Kisbenedek/AFP Photo)

In this handout photo provided by Warner Brothers Pictures and Village Roadshow Pictures, Tom Cruise plays Lieutenant Colonel Bill Cage, a soldier who replays his last day while trying to fight aliens, in director Doug Liman's “All You Need Is Kill”. The film is set to premiere on March 14, 2014. (Photo by David James/Warner Brothers Pictures)

A Tibetan rider fires his weapon as he perfoms his riding skills at the Qinghai Yushu Horse Racing Festival on July 27, 2007 in Yushu County of Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai Province, northwest China. The Horse Racing Festival of Tibetan nomads in Yushu Prefecture falls in late July and early August on the Tibetan calendar. During the festival, various equestrian skills will be performed along with singing, dancing and costume shows. (Photo by China Photos/Getty Images)

Men hang at the back of a truck loaded with farm produce along a road in Ikeja district in the commercial capital Lagos, Nigeria December 19, 2016. (Photo by Akintunde Akinleye/Reuters)

A light railway train passes through a residential building on March 18, 2017 in Chongqing, China. Chongqing Rail Transit No.2 and a 19-storey residential building have been built across each other. The railway set its Liziba Station on the sixth to eighth floor in the building with noise reduction equipment. (Photo by VCG/VCG via Getty Images)

Children of the Roma community play as they cool off in a fountain in the main square of Pristina, Kosovo on June 14, 2017. (Photo by Armend Nimani/AFP Photo)