A boat is stranded on Poyang Lake in Lushan City, China during low-water season on November 3, 2016. (Photo by Xinhua/Barcroft 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.

Participants, one of them loosing balance, jump in a sack race at a shopping center in Paris to win a 500 euros voucher (537 USD), on the first day of the winter sales in Paris, France, Wednesday, January 6 , 2016. The five-week 2016 winter sales start everywhere across France on Wednesday Jan. 6 and end on Feb. 16. (Photo by Francois Mori/AP Photo)

Kyrgyz men on horseback compete during their traditional game of “Oodarysh” during the celebrations of the 90th anniversary formation of the Chui region in the village of Kuntu some 20 kms from Bishkek on May 27, 2016. (Photo by Vyacheslav Oseledko/AFP Photo)

During a jungle survival program February 20, 2013 taught by Royal Thai Special Forces in Sannapit, Thailand, U.S. Marines learned to catch cobras and drink their fresh blood, not to mention eat forest insects and pull the heads off of chicken. The training was part of Operation Cobra Gold 13, the 32nd edition of international military exercises hosted by the Thai. According to a U.S. Marines press release, Cobra Gold is the largest exercise of its kind in Asia and incorporates troops from five other nations in addition to the U.S. and Thailand. The Daily Mail reports that the Marines were invited to experience the local custom of drinking cobra blood after being taught to catch and kill cobras in the wild. As CNN notes, Cobra blood is believed to be a panacea and aphrodiasic in parts of Southeast Asia. In Jakarta, vendors can earn over $100 a night selling shots of cobra blood mixed with liquor. (Photo by Pornchai Kittiwongsakul/AFP Photo)

A group of youngsters dressed as ghouls and zombies for Halloween parade in downtown Lisbon, Portugal, Friday, October 31, 2014. (Photo by Francisco Seco/AP Photo)

Visitors look on as a man (front) inserts two live snakes through his nose and mouth during a performance at an amusement park to celebrate the 65th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China and the 7-day national day holiday, in Jinhua, Zhejiang province October 1, 2014. (Photo by Reuters/Stringer)

An artist's impression of a growing supermassive black hole located in the early Universe is seen in this NASA handout illustration released on June 15, 2011. Using the deepest X-ray image ever taken, astronomers found the first direct evidence that massive black holes were common in the early universe. This discovery from NASA's Chandra X-Ray Observatory shows that very young black holes grew more aggressively than previously thought, in tandem with the growth of their host galaxies. (Photo by Reuters/NASA/Chandra X-Ray Observatory/A.Hobart)