Kyrgyz dancers perform in an event gathering bedouins and nomads from around the world as part of the annual King Abdulaziz Camel Festival in Rumah desert, northeast of the Saudi capital Riyadh, on March 19, 2019. (Photo by Fayez Nureldine/AFP Photo)

Families visit Clifton beach to celebrate the Eid al-Fitr holidays, marking the end of the Islamic holy fasting month of Ramadan, in Karachi, Pakistan, Sunday, April 23, 2023. (Photo by Fareed Khan/AP Photo)

Taiwanese-American performer Nymphia Wind arrives for the 76th annual Emmy Awards ceremony held at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles, California, USA, 15 September 2024. The Emmys celebrate excellence in national primetime television programming. (Photo by Allison Dinner/EPA/EFE)

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova dances during the reception in honour of heads of the delegations at the Russia-ASEAN summit in Sochi, Russia, May 19, 2016. (Photo by Host photo agency via Reuters)

Members of the Times Square Alliance snow clearing team take a photo on a snowbank at Times Square in the Manhattan borough of New York January 23, 2016. A winter storm dumped nearly 2 feet (58 cm) of snow on the suburbs of Washington, D.C., on Saturday before moving on to Philadelphia and New York, paralyzing road, rail and airline travel along the U.S. East Coast. (Photo by Shannon Stapleton/Reuters)

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 four-week old southern three-banded armadillo (Tolypeutes matacus) is rolled up into a ball next to its mother in the tropical house of Budapest Zoo in Budapest, Hungary on May 3, 2019. The South American insect-eating mammal and its close relative, the Brasilian three-banded armadillo (Tolypeutes tricinctus) are the only two species of armadillos capable of rolling into a complete ball to defend themselves when feeling threatened. (Photo by Attila Kovács/EPA/EFE)

A protester reacts at an anti-riot police officer after being teargased as he takes part in a demonstration against a controversial tax bill in the central business district in Nairobi, Kenya, 20 June 2024. Police have fired tear gas to disperse protesters who gathered near the parliament to demonstrate against planned tax hikes that many fear will worsen the cost-of-living crisis. (Photo by Daniel Irungu/EPA)