In this photo taken on June 16, 2019 Indian stuntman Chanchal Lahiri, known by his stage name “Jadugar Mandrake”, is lowered into the Ganges river, while tied up with steel chains and ropes, in Kolkata. An Indian magician who went missing after being lowered into a river tied up in chains and ropes in a Houdini-inspired stunt is feared drowned, police said June 17. (Photo by AFP Photo/Stringer)

David Bowie wears an eyepatch in red suit and guitar on blue background at Top Pop television studios in Holland while doing playback to his hit song Rebel Rebel in 1974. (Photo by Barry Schultz/Sunshine/REX Shutterstock)

Ivan Shamyanok, 90, shaves in his house in the village of Tulgovichi, near the exclusion zone around the Chernobyl nuclear reactor, Belarus March 15, 2016. “My sister lived here with her husband. They decided to leave and soon enough they were in the ground ... They died from anxiety. I'm not anxious. I sing a little, take a turn in the yard, take things slowly like this and I live”, he said. (Photo by Vasily Fedosenko/Reuters)

Enigmatic Italian forward Mario Balotelli is always good for drama, so Fanny Neguesha is perfect for him. With her racy Instagram shots and wild ways, she might be the one to tame Super Mario’s heart. The couple was engaged to marry this week. (Photo by Splash News/Getty Images/Instagram.com)

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.

An Indian girl, Aritri Bannerjee, gets dressed as the Goddess Durga, during the Kumari Puja as part of the Durga Puja festival at Shidaspur village, far north of Kolkata, eastern India, 22 October 2023. During the Kumari Puja, devotees worship a girl aged between six and twelve, symbolizing the Kanya Kumari (virgin) form of the Goddess Durga Devi. Hindu devotees believe that Kanya is a living embodiment of the goddess Durga. (Photo by Piyal Adhikary/EPA/EFE)

Women kiss each other as people celebrate outside the Stonewall Inn in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York June 26, 2015. The Supreme Court ruled on Friday that the U.S. Constitution provides same-s*x couples the right to marry, handing a historic triumph to the American gay rights movement. (Photo by Eduardo Munoz/Reuters)

Two students in Birmingham, United Kingdom dressed as policewomen enjoy a takeaway on October 31, 2018. Halloween party-goers enjoyed one hell of a night for the annual fright-fest. (Photo by Caters News Agency)