A man walks past kelp as he goes for a swim in the Pacific Ocean at La Jolla Shores, Thursday, July 24, 2025, in San Diego. (Photo by Gregory Bull/AP Photo)

Emily Ratajkowski sizzled in a plunging black swimsuit. The model is holidaying in the Adriatic near the Mediterranean Sea in the second decade of July 2025. (Photo by Instagram)

The Spider-Man balloon is inflated on the eve of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade 2025 on Manhattan's upper west side in New York City, U.S., November 26, 2025. (Photo by Kylie Cooper/Reuters)

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 share a moment after performing at a cultural program during India's Independence Day celebrations in Ajmer, in the desert state of Rajasthan, India, August 15, 2016. (Photo by Himanshu Sharma/Reuters)

People are reflected in a shop window as they walk along a street in a shopping district in Tokyo, Japan June 25, 2015. (Photo by Thomas Peter/Reuters)

Francisco da Silva Vale, 61, cools off fish with ice produced on solar-powered ice machines at Vila Nova do Amana community in the Sustainable Development Reserve, in Amazonas state, Brazil, September 23, 2015. Three solar-powered machines, are producing about ninety kilos of ice per day, in a region with poor access to electric energy, which used to be produced only with diesel oil, in the Amazon rain forest. (Photo by Bruno Kelly/Reuters)

Hillary Clinton waves to a selfie-taking crowd at a recent campaign event in Orlando, Florida on September 26, 2016. (Photo by Barbara Kinney/Hillary for America)