Visitors at the National Zoo check out a parrotfish made from found waste from the ocean in Washington, DC on May 23, 2016. The artwork can be seen at the National Zoo until September 5th. (Photo by Keith Lane/The Washington Post)

Two dancers pass each other as they compete in a heat during the All Scotland Championships in Irish Dancing at the Royal Concert Hall in Glasgow, Scotland. The championships attract over 2000 dancers from more than 300 dance schools, from countires such as North America, South Africa, Australia and Russia. (Photo by David Moir/Reuters)

At the Krasnopresnenskaya station, the benches come from the Cathedral of Christ-Sauveur, which was built from 1839 to 1883 in memory of the victory of Russia against the army of Napoleon I. The cathedral was destroyed under Stalin in 1931, but the benches remained intact. Metro architects decided to install them in some stations. (Photo by Didier Bizet/The Washington Post)

The Angel of The North at Gateshead in Tyne and Wear, UK with a halo drawn in sky using a light on a drone, captured during a 25-second exposure on January 20, 2025. (Photo by Ian Sproat/Picture Exclusive)

An Indian woman dressed in traditional attire rides a motorcycle as she participates in a procession to mark Gudi Padwa or the Marathi New Year in Mumbai, Maharashtra state, India, Wednesday, March 22, 2023. (Photo by Rajanish Kakade/AP Photo)

Mikhail Vasilenko, a participant from the Siberian town of Nizhny Tagil, works on an ice sculpture called “The Predator”, on the last day of the annual international festival of snow and ice sculptures “The Magical Ice of Siberia”, with the air temperature at about minus 28 degrees Celsius (minus 18.4 degrees Fahrenheit), in Krasnoyarsk, Russia, January 17, 2016. (Photo by Ilya Naymushin/Reuters)

Andrey Rublev shouts at line judge while playing against Alexander Bublik of Kazakhstan in their semifinal match during the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships at Dubai Duty Free Tennis Stadium on March 01, 2024 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. (Photo by Christopher Pike/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.