(L-R) Maria Silva, Milena Cortes, Maria Arteaga, Jackeline Bastidas and Gissy Abello pose for a picture at the Famproa dogs shelter where they work, in Los Teques, Venezuela, August 25, 2016. Venezuelans struggling to feed their families let alone their pets are dumping animals on the streets, in parks and at makeshift homes overrun with scrawny animals amid an economic crisis. An hour from Caracas in Los Teques, hundreds of dogs bark and run around the streets scavenging for food outside a makeshift shelter. (Photo by Carlos Garcia Rawlins/Reuters)

Looters scramble in Philipsburg, St. Maarten, Sunday September 10, 1995 for goods in the Ram's department store, which contained mostly food and liquor. No attempts are currently being made by Dutch troops on the island to stop the looting, since few relief supplies have arrived in St. Maarten, which was ravaged on Tuesday by Hurricane Luis. (Photo by John McConnico/AP 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.

Marine biologist Simon Pierce, who studies whale sharks, happened to be in the right place at the right time to capture amazing photo off Cancun, Mexico. (Photo by Simon Pierce/Mercury Press/Caters News)

A view of one of the dioramas contained inside iron boxes as part of the “S.A.C.R.E.D” installation by Chinese artist Ai Weiwei during a media preview at the cathedral in Cuenca, Spain, July 21, 2016. Ai Weiwei has reproduced scenes of his incarceration for a new art installation, a series of almost life-size dioramas – encased in steel boxes – showing his life in jail. (Photo by Susana Vera/Reuters)

A donkey savors warming temperatures after a long winter at the zoo in Warsaw, Poland, on Wednesday, April 8, 2015. (Photo by Czarek Sokolowski/AP Photo)

Singer Paulina Rubio performs during the Latin Billboard Awards, Thursday, April 28, 2016 in Coral Gables, Fla. (Photo by Wilfredo Lee/AP Photo)

A five-week-old orphaned Southern Sea Otter pup rests on a rubber mat after arriving at the Shedd Aquarium's Abbott Oceanarium in Chicago, Illinois October 28, 2014 in this handout photo provided to Reuters on November 5, 2014. The stranded pup was found on September 30 on Coastways Beach in California and was rescued the next day to be brought back to health at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Southern sea otters were listed as “threatened” under the U.S. Endangered Species Act in 1977. (Photo by Brenna Hernandez/Reuters/Shedd Aquarium)