American actress Aubrey Plaza (L) dances with American actress and model Madelyn Cline while sipping Avaline sparkling at Stella McCartney and Baz Luhrmann's Met Gala after party with Casamigos Tequila in Manhattan, New York on May 1, 2023. (Photo by Matteo Prandoni/BFA.com)

A boy sleeps in a hammock while his mother works at a brick kiln on the outskirts of Yangon February 1, 2015. (Photo by Soe Zeya Tun/Reuters)

A gosling sits in the plumage of its mother, in a meadow in Frankfurt, Germany, Saturday, April 13, 2024. (Photo by Michael Probst/AP Photo)

This picture was taken in the 1890's and shows a group of loggers hauling a heavy load. It is hard to even picture how they got the logs stacked that high. It is also hard to imagine how they keep it from tipping over.

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.

“Mother and Child”. Snow monkey at “Jigokudani hot-spring” in Nagano, Japan. (Photo by Kiyoshi Ookawa)

Daughter being told off by her mother. (Photo by Peter Dazeley/Getty Images)

“Unexpected x2 (a.k.a. “how much is that doggie in the window”)”. Taiwan, 2011. (Photo and caption by Asian (Street) Impressions)