People take cover as riot police use pepper spray projectile during a protest as a second reading of a controversial national anthem law takes place in Hong Kong, China on May 27, 2020. (Photo by Tyrone Siu/Reuters)

Soldier wear face masks prior to the Bastille Day parade Tuesday, July 14, 2020 on the Champs Elysees avenue in Paris. France are honoring nurses, ambulance drivers, supermarket cashiers and others on its biggest national holiday Tuesday. Bastille Day's usual grandiose military parade in Paris is being redesigned this year to celebrate heroes of the coronavirus pandemic. (Photo by Christophe Ena/AP Photo/Pool)

Democratic presidential candidate and US Vice President Kamala Harris reacts as she holds a photographer's camera while flying on Marine Two, on her way to O'Hare International Airport, Chicago, Illinois, on August 20, 2024. Harris is traveling to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to speak at a campaign event. (Photo by Kevin Lamarque/Pool via AFP Photo)

A Dallas Cowboys cheerleader performs between plays during game featuring the Houston Texans and the Dallas Cowboys on November 18, 2024 at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, TX. The Texans won 34-10 in the Cowboys’ fifth straight defeat. (Photo by Kevin Jairaj-Imagn/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 volunteer tries out a protective suits for health workers, at the International Islamic University Malaysia in Gombak, outskirts of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Friday, April 10, 2020. The Malaysian government issued a restricted movement order to the public for the rest of the month to help curb the spread of the new coronavirus. (Photo by Vincent Thian/AP Photo)

A couple is walking hand-held up Kronsberg, just outside Hanover, Germany on April 7, 2020, when the moon rises on the horizon as the so-called supermoon. The moon reaches its perigee, i.e. the point closest to the Earth's orbit, on the night of 7-8 April as a full moon and therefore appears particularly large to the human observer. (Photo by Julian Stratenschulte/dpa via ZUMA Press)

A Tibetan living-in-exile in India attends a peace march during the 62nd Tibetan National Uprising Day in the suburb of McLeod Ganj, the seat of the Central Tibetan Administration in exile, near Dharamsala, India, 10 March 2021. Tibetan Uprising Day is held annually on 10 March and commemorates the Tibetan uprising against the presence of the People's Republic of China in Tibet in 1959. (Photo by Sanjay Baid/EPA/EFE)