Members of the Dominican Armed Forces participate in a commemorative act on the 170th anniversary of national independence at the esplanade of Santo Domingo, on February 27, 2014. (Photo by Orlando Barria/EPA)

Two cats watch a mouse walking on the pavement in Kuwait City on March 8,2017. (Photo by Yasser Al-Zayyat/AFP Photo)

Long row of shiny new Flying Fortresses, part of huge reserves being built up in Britain for D-Day, stands by to be flown to combat units as replacements, May 25, 1944. (Photo by AP Photo)

This photo taken on July 13, 2023 shows a woman wearing traditional Uyghur attire posing for photos in the Old Kashgar tourist area in China's northwestern Xinjiang region. Chinese travellers throng the bazaars of old Kashgar, munching mutton kebabs and soaking up heavily commodified Uyghur culture – part of a government push to remould troubled Xinjiang into a tourism paradise. (Photo by Pedro Pardo/AFP 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.

A highland cow in Purbeck, Dorset shows off for the camera in the second decade of February 2023. (Photo by Kate Fry/Bournemouth News)

The BADGER shot was a 23 kiloton nuclear bomb. Over 2,000 US soldiers were within 3.7 kilometers of the explosion. (Photo by Alamy Stock Photo)

A crowd of tourists walk on the street near Kiyomizu-dera temple in Kyoto, western Japan on March 30, 2023. (Photo by Issei Kato/Reuters)