Paint-splattered revellers take a break at the Notting Hill carnival in West London in the last decade of August 2022. (Photo by Andy Hall/The Observer)

Relatives of the Palestinians, who lost their lives as a result of the Israeli attacks on the public market in the Sheikh Ridan neighborhood where people were waiting for aid, mourn as the dead bodies are brought the Al-Shifa Hospital for burial process on August 13, 2025 in Deir Al Balah, Gaza. (Photo by Mahmoud Issa/Anadolu via Getty Images)

«Maraatack». Barrio Alto, Almería, Spain. Ribeira took the photographs for her Agony in the Garden series in her native Spain, between 2021 and 2023. (Photo by Lúa Ribeira/The Guardian)

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.

Growing cities, overuse of fertilizers and factory wastewater have degraded China's water supplies to the extent that half the nation's rivers and lakes are severely polluted. China aims to spend $850 billion to improve filthy water supplies over the next decade, but even such huge outlays may do little to reverse damage caused by decades of pollution and overuse in Beijing's push for rapid economic growth. Photo: Fishermen row a boat in the algae-filled Chaohu Lake in Hefei, Anhui province, June 19, 2009. (Photo by Jianan Yu/Reuters)

A model presents a creation at the Central St Martin's catwalk show during London Fashion Week in London, Britain February 17, 2017. (Photo by Neil Hall/Reuters)

Children react after what activists said was shelling by forces loyal to Syria's President Bashar al-Assad near the Syrian Arab Red Crescent center in the Douma neighborhood of Damascus May 6, 2015. (Photo by Bassam Khabieh/Reuters)

Four-month-old fox cubs squaring up to each other in Walthamstow, England on August 7, 2015. (Photo by Greg Morgan/Barcroft Media)