U.S. Corporal Stanley Suski, left, and Miss Tamako, a Geisha girl, whirl a bit of Jitterbug, in a bar, in Tokyo, Japan, on October 1, 1945. (Photo by AP Photo)

Dhruva Aliman does a back somersault as he dismounts from a slackline on the beach at Santa Monica, California on October 19, 2014. Slackline is a balance sport where a line of webbing is adjusted at different levels of tension between two anchor points and participants (called slackers) perform tricks and stunts including somersaults. (Photo by Mark Ralston/AFP Photo)

Yang Shiguang, 77, performs stunts at a park in Xi'an, Shaanxi province, September 3, 2013. Yang has been a member of a stunt performance club since 2007, after retiring from a research institution. (Photo by Reuters/China Daily)

A Saddle-billed Stork is seen in Amboseli National park, Kenya, February 10, 2016. (Photo by Goran Tomasevic/Reuters)

Islamic female students practice the ancient Thai art of “Krabi Krabong” taught as a sport at the Darunsat Wittaya school on August 16, 2011 in Saraburi, Thailand. (Photo by Paula Bronstein/Getty Images)

Young women pose for photos in a Christmas-themed tunnel lit-up with decorations outside a shopping mall in Bangkok on December 4, 2020. (Photo by Mladen Antonov/AFP 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.

Hot air balloons take to the skies as they participate in the mass assent at sunrise on the second day of the Bristol International Balloon Fiesta on August 11, 2017 in Bristol, England. More than 130 balloons have gathered for the four day event, now in its 39th year and now one of Europe's largest annual hot air balloon events, being hosted in the city that is seen by many as the home of modern ballooning. (Photo by Matt Cardy/Getty Images)