A dog is kept at a pen at the newly opened Central Zoo in Pyongyang, North Korea, Tuesday, August 23, 2016. One of the most popular attractions at the zoo might come as a surprise to foreign visitors. Just across the way from the hippopotamus pen and the reptile house, dozens of varieties of dogs, including schnauzers, German shepherds, Shih Tzus and Saint Bernards – are on display in the “dog pavilion”. (Photo by Dita Alangkara/AP Photo)

A “Free Syrian Army” fighter in the Bustan Pasha neighborhood of Aleppo, Syria, August 21, 2013. (Photo by James Lawler Duggan)

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.

Pro-Russian activists attack policemen guarding the burned trade union building in the southern Ukrainian city of Odessa on May 3, 2014. More than 30 people were killed in a “criminal” blaze in Ukraine's southern city of Odessa, as violence spread across the country during the bloodiest day since Kiev's Western-backed government took power. Ukraine's interior ministry said at least 31 people had died in the fire Friday, with local media reporting that pro-Russian militants were believed to have been in the burning building at the time. (Photo by Anatolii Stepanov/AFP Photo)

Astronauts Harrison Schmitt (left) and Eugene Andrew Cernan practice taking geological samples at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, in preparation for NASA's scheduled Apollo 17 lunar landing mission, on August 28, 1972. Schmitt is the Lunar Module Pilot and Cernan is the mission's Commander. They are training for their period of EVA (extravehicular activity) on the Moon. (Photo by Space Frontiers/Getty Images)

Balinese children take part in a traditional mud bath known as Mebuug-buugan, a day after Nyepi – the “Day of Silence”, aimed at neutralising bad traits in Kedonganan village on Indonesia's resort island of Bali on March 23, 2023. (Photo by Sonny Tumbelaka/AFP Photo)

Men play with an oiled coconut during Myanmar's 73rd Independence Day celebrations amid the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Yangon, Myanmar, January 4, 2021. (Photo by Shwe Paw Mya Tin/Reuters)

A picture taken with a drones shows Kayakers make use of the current that flows over a dike in the flood plains of the Waal river, with the Waal bridge of Nijmegen in the background in Lent, the Netherlands, 04 February 2021. The heavy rainfall and snow melt in southern Germany has caused a significant rise in the water level in various places in the Netherlands. (Photo by Robin Van Lonkhuijsen/EPA/EFE)