Pornstar Asa Akira made an appearance at the new Pornhub shop in New York, USA on Friday, November 25, 2017. Pornhub is a pornographic video sharing website and the largest pоrnography site on the Internet. The new pop-up will be open in New York's SoHo until 20 December. (Photo by Curtis Means/ACE Pictures/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

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.

Charli XCX performs at Hype Hotel on March 17, 2016 in Austin, Texas. (Photo by Lorne Thomson/Redferns)

Belarusian Sergei Selekh plays with his 6-month-old tamed wolves on the outskirts of the village of Gaina, 45 kilometers (28 miles) north of Belarus capital Minsk, Wednesday, December 31, 2014. Selekh owns a farmstead, where sheep, wolves and an ethnographic museum serve as entertainment for guests. (Photo by Sergei Grits/AP Photo)

A camel yawns as a tourist checks images on her camera following a ride on a camel safari alongside the Pacific Ocean on Lighthouse Beach, north of Sydney, December 4, 2014. For 25 years camel rides on this beach have given visitors to Australia's holiday coast a rare experience available only in a handful of locations in the country. Australia's long history with the “ships of the desert” goes back to the 1800s when they were imported from Afghanistan and India for use as transportation across Australia's vast deserts before being released into the wild following their replacement by motorised transport. (Photo by Jason Reed/Reuters)

A participant in the Crazy Races extreme sports game competes in the cross-country obstacle race in Ufa, Russia on September 21, 2015. (Photo by TASS/Barcroft Media)

Afghan protesters beat a policeman after a suicide attack that targeted crowds of minority Shiite Hazaras during a demonstration at the Deh Mazang Circle of Kabul on July 23, 2016. Islamic State jihadists claimed responsibility for twin explosions July 23 that ripped through crowds of Shiite Hazaras in Kabul, killing at least 61 people and wounding 207 others in apparently their deadliest attack in the Afghan capital. The bombings during a huge protest over a power transmission line could deepen sectarian divisions in a country well known for communal harmony despite decades of war. (Photo by Wakil Kohsar/AFP Photo)

The UK Love Island star Tasha Ghouri stunned in a white see-through dress in the second decade of August 2023. Tasha celebrated her birthday in style. (Photo by Instagram)