The sign above the door of restaurant and hotel “Am Paulusbogen” is partially submerged in the flooded centre of the Bavarian town of Passau, about 200 km (124 miles) north-east of Munich June 3, 2013. (Photo by Michaela Rehle/Reuters)

38 year old Prabhat Sinha, from Assam, carries a load of coal weighing 60kg's, supported by a head-strap, as he ascends the staircase of a coal mine on April 16, 2011 near the village of Khliehriat, in the district of Jaintia Hills, India. (Photo by Daniel Berehulak/Getty Images)

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.

Principle Ballet Dancer, Ekaterina Bulgutova, of the Russian State Ballet, with the Nutcracker part of Christmas Ballet Season in Cardiff which starts at St Davids Hall on December 20, 2016 in Cardiff, England. (Photo by Kiran Ridley/Barcroft Images)

In this Tuesday, March 31, 2015 photo, Indian women walk carrying firewood they collected from a forest at Gobhali village on the outskirts of Gauhati, India. Every evening, hundreds of millions of Indian women hover over crude stoves making dinner for their families. They feed the flames with polluting fuels like kerosene or cow dung, and breathe the acrid smoke wafting from the fires. (Photo by Anupam Nath/AP Photo)

Polling station officials dressed as traditional Balinese performers vote in Badung regency on the Indonesian island of Bali December 9, 2015 in this photo taken by Antara Foto. Around 100 million Indonesians were expected to go to the polls on Wednesday in many parts of the country to elect heads of local government. (Photo by Wira Suryantala/Reuters/Antara Foto)

This is the remarkable moment a group of skydivers performed a world record breaking feat in honour of their friend who died while skydiving. Known as a “Bigway”, the daring jump involves 57 people holding hands in a predetermined design as they hurtle towards the ground, head first. After making the first shape, the group then break away before coming back together to form a second shape all in a single skydive. Captured using a GoPro camera by Alaskan skydiver, Ben Nelson, 36, the topsy-turvy footage shows the adrenalin junkies soaring through the air at around 160mph before banding together twice in mid-air, making the stunt a world first. (Photo by Ben Nelson/Caters News)

A fisherman boats in Chao Lake where thick cyanobacteria gather on the surface on August 5, 2015 in Chaohu, Anhui Province of China. As high temperature came in summar, part of water in Anhui Province's Chao Lake breeds large tracts of cyanobacteria which not only brought pollution to sense of smell, but also affected people's life. (Photo by ChinaFotoPress/ChinaFotoPress via Getty Images)