Mourning woman. (Photo by Rich Legg/Getty Images/iStockphoto)

In this Thursday, April 11, 2013 photo, an Afghan woman peers through the the eye slit of her burqa as she waits to try on a new burqa in shop in the old town of Kabul, Afghanistan. (Photo by Anja Niedringhaus/AP Photo)

A traffic policeman hides a rose behind his back before giving it to a female driver ahead of International Women's Day in Ryazan, Russia on March 7, 2017. (Photo by Alexander Ryumin/TASS via Getty Images)

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.

Models in action at the Kibera Fashion Week event in the Kibera slum of Nairobi, Kenya Saturday, October 14, 2023. (Photo by Brian Inganga/AP Photo)

Student, Shoukria positions a stone for cutting at the Turquoise Mountain Gem cutting class on May 18, 2011, in Kabul, Afghanistan. The mineral resources of Afghanistan are relatively unexplored even with Afghanistan's mineral wealth of coal, copper, gold and iron ore, with precious and semiprecious stones, including high-quality emerald, lapis lazuli, red garnet and ruby. Given the country's remote and rugged terrain, on-going instability plus an inadequate infrastructure and transportation means that mining is still difficult. While many are trying to bring positive changes, Afghanistan's mining industry uses unregulated, primitive methods and outdated equipment. (Photo by Paula Bronstein/Getty Images)

A bakery worker carries fresh bread in Cairo, Egypt on August 1, 2021. (Photo by Amr Abdallah Dalsh/Reuters)

Grumpy Cat attends the “Grumpy Cat: A Grumpy Book” Book Event at Bookends Bookstore on October 16, 2013 in Ridgewood, New Jersey. (Photo by Michael N. Todaro/WireImage)