Five year old George holds an orange to feed the Owl butterflies at the Natural History Museum in London, Thursday, March 30, 2017. Hundreds of tropical butterflies were released to launch the Natural History Museum's Sensational Butterflies exhibition, starting for the public on March 31, 2017. (Photo by Frank Augstein/AP Photo)

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.

People take turns stomping the Christopher Columbus statue after it was toppled in front of the Minnesota State Capitol in St. Paul, Minn., on Wednesday, June 10, 2020. (Photo by Leila Navidi/Star Tribune via AP Photo)

English actress Liz Hurley, 55, poses topless in the snow in a photo taken by her son in United Kingdom at the end of January 2021. Brit stripped to white bikini bottoms from her own swimwear range and draped herself in a coat. (Photo by Instagram/The Sun)

A child sitting in a washbowl filled with water cools himself as civilians struggle with protecting themselves from the dangers of extreme heat at the refugee camp, in Idlib, Syria on July 13, 2023. The civilians, who fled from the attacks of the Syrian Army, live under harsh conditions without infrastructure and electricity while the temperature reaches 47 Celsius in the region. (Photo by Izzeddin Kasim/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

Armed forces veteran Frank Simpson at the Portico library being camouflaged by body artist Carolyn Roper in Manchester, UK on May 16, 2016 as part of the #CountThemIn campaign launched on Monday by the Royal British Legion. (Photo by Jon Super/Royal British Legion/PA Wire)

In this undated photo provided on Monday, November 25, 2019, by the North Korean government, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, center, poses as he inspects a women's company under Unit 5492 of the Korean People's Army in North Korea. Independent journalists were not given access to cover the event depicted in this image distributed by the North Korean government. The content of this image is as provided and cannot be independently verified. (Photo by Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP Photo)

Indian dancers perform a fire breathing act during a procession to mark the 661st anniversary of the birth of Hindu guru Bawa Lal Dayal Maharaj in Amritsar on February 9, 2016. Bawa Lal Dayal Maharaj, a popular leader of his time, is especially revered by devotees of a temple in the town of Dhyanpur, some 45 kms north of Amritsar. (Photo by Narinder Nanu/AFP Photo)