Competitors pose backstage during the Arnold Classic South America bodybuilding event in Sao Paulo, Brazil, April 22, 2017. (Photo by Nacho Doce/Reuters)

American actress Anne Hathaway is seen at a film set for the AppleTV+ series, “WeCrashed” on June 11, 2021 in New York City. (Photo by Pacific Coast News)

Canadian singer-songwriter Shania Twain poses for a selfie as she attends the 2022 People's Choice Awards in Santa Monica, California, U.S. December 6, 2022. (Photo by Mario Anzuoni/Reuters)

Palestinians react at the site of an Israeli strike on a house, in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip on October 24, 2023. (Photo by Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/Reuters)

American media personality Kim Kardashian and her mom Kris Jenner have debuted totally different looks in a new photoshoot in the last decade of June 2025. Kim, 44, shows off her curves for the pictures, which reveal her new Skims collaboration with Italian fashion brand Roberto Cavalli. (Photo by Instagram)

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.

Model Alessandra Ambrosio poses for photographers during the red carpet for the movie “Spotlight” at the 72nd Venice Film Festival in northern Italy, September 3, 2015. (Photo by Stefano Rellandini/Reuters)

This 1999 photo, supplied by HBO, shows a younger-looking James Gandolfini, who plays mob boss Tony Soprano, in an episode from the first season of the HBO cable television mob series, “The Sopranos”. Actor James Gandolfini, best known for his Emmy-winning portrayal of a conflicted New Jersey mob boss in the acclaimed HBO cable television series “The Sopranos”, has died while vacationing in Rome, the network said on June 19, 2013. (Photo by Anthony Neste/AP Photo/HBO)