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.

Hundreds of gannets dive for mackerel off the coast of Shetland, Northern Isles of Scotland on July 2020, where they plunge into the water from heights of up to 100ft at speeds of 60mph. (Photo by David Keep/The Times)

A worker restores the lead of one of the sculptures forming the Apollo's Chariot Fountain by Jean-Baptiste Tuby depicting Louis XIV, the god of the sun, driving his four-horse chariot full pelt, symbolising the ascent of the rising sun, at The Coubertin Foundry in Saint-Remy-les-Chevreuse, southwestern Paris, on July 10, 2023. This 18-month project will involve a wide range of skills and will enable the rebirth of this fountain at the Versailles' castle. (Photo by Emmanuel Dunand/AFP Photo)

Buyan, a male Siberian brown bear, cools down under a stream of water sprayed by an employee in an enclosure on a hot summer day, at the Royev Ruchey zoo in Krasnoyarsk, Russia on June 14, 2019. (Photo by Ilya Naymushin/Reuters)

A Saudi trader wears a mask as he monitors stock information at the Saudi stock market in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on August 25, 2020. (Photo by Ahmed Yosri/Reuters)

A communal worker removes the snow from steps next people dressed as pandas near the center of the Ukrainian capital Kiev, on November 14, 2018, during an heavy snowfall, the first one of this autumn season. (Photo by Sergei Supinsky/AFP Photo)

A mobile phone cover with a picture of Russian President Vladimir Putin and which reads “Mr President” is seen in this photo illustration taken a in hotel room in Kazan, Russia, July 30, 2015. He may be in charge of an economy in crisis, but if mobile phone covers and souvenir mugs are a barometer of popularity, Russian President Vladimir Putin need not fear for his political future. In fact, Moscow's annexation of Crimea from Ukraine last year has given the memorabilia makers even more material to glorify, sometimes wryly, a president whose image as a champion of Russian national interests in a hostile world is barely challenged in his own country. (Photo by Stefan Wermuth/Reuters)

“A fter the former Soviet Union conducted its first nuclear test in August 1949, the US reevaluated its postwar defense policies. With the US monopoly on atomic weapons broken, military and political leaders chose to diversify the American stockpile by developing thermonuclear and tactical nuclear weapons. One of the more interesting concepts to come out of this period was atomic artillery, which was successfully tested at the Nevada Proving Grounds (now the Nevada Test Site) in May 1953”. – Alan Carr. Photo: Atomic Annie at work during the Upshot-Knothole test series, 1953. (Photo by Los Alamos National Laboratory/US Army)