A protester jumps in the air as he throws a rock towards police next to a burning barricade in the Kibera slum of Nairobi, Kenya, Monday, March 20, 2023. (Photo by Ben Curtis/AP Photo)

A demonstrator reacts when Molotov cocktails hit the ground in front of security forces during protests against election results after Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro and his opposition rival Edmundo Gonzalez claimed victory in Sunday's presidential election, in Puerto La Cruz, Venezuela on July 29, 2024. (Photo by Samir Aponte/Reuters)

The pelican, named “Ndagabar”, which means pelican in the local Wolof language, begins visiting the neighborhood in the early hours of the day in Saint-Louis, Senegal on November 02, 2024. The pelican, which 62-year-old retired fisherman Madiop Gueye, has been keeping in front of his house for five years, has become the center of both the neighborhood and the region, attracting the attention of both local and foreign tourists. (Photo by Cem Ozdel/Anadolu 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.

A woman is led aside as her partner is detained by Ukrainian security forces for being aggressive at an army checkpoint in the southeastern port city of Mariupol, on May 11, 2014. Residents’ attitudes appear to have hardened considerably with the deaths of dozens of pro-Russian activists in the city of Odessa this month and with reports that troops fired at a crowd in Mariupol last week. (Photo by Marko Djurica/Reuters)

Harris & Ewing Inc. photographed people, events, and architecture, particularly in Washington, D.C., during the period 1905-1945. Photo: Tests of Curtiss Palne for Army, Single Control. Created by Harris & Ewing. Published in 1912.

Cars drive on an alley between rape fields in the outskirts of Frankfurt, Germany, Monday, April 22, 2024. (Photo by Michael Probst/AP Photo)

Protesters sit in a cafe during a “SlutWalk” protest, in which several hundred participants march through the centre of Jerusalem, May 13, 2016. The SlutWalk movement began after a Toronto policeman suggested in 2011 that women could avoid sexual assault by not dressing like a “sl*t”. (Photo by Amir Cohen/Reuters)