(L-R) Ozzy Osbourne and son, producer Jack Osbourne visit the Tribeca Film Festival 2011 portrait studio on April 25, 2011 in New York City. (Photo by Larry Busacca/Getty Images for Tribeca Film Festival)

Masked women shout slogans during a demonstration marking the Latin American Day for Decriminalization of Therapeutic Abortion in Managua, Nicaragua, where abortions are illegal, on September 28, 2012. (Photo by Esteban Felix/Associated Press)

American actress Drea de Matteo in Halloween costume in the last decade of October 2025, (Photo by Ashlee Krutzfeldt)

An exhausted and frustated migrant holds his head after he missed to get a place on a train heading to the Serbian border at the train station in Gevgelija, The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, August 13, 2015. From the beginning of the year to mid-June 2015, nearly 160,000 migrants landed in the southern European countries, mainly Greece and Italy, on their way to wealthier countries in Western and Northern Europe, according to estimates by the International Organization for Migration (IOM). (Photo by Georgi Licovski/EPA)

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 vervet monkey passes in front of a woman on the shores of lake Naivasha, Kenya January 24, 2017. (Photo by Goran Tomasevic/Reuters)

Canadian actor Percy Hynes White and American actress Jenna Ortega at the 80th Golden Globes After Party Powered By Billboard held at The Beverly Hilton on January 10, 2023 in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by Christopher Polk/Billboard via Getty Images)

An explosion at a petrochemical plant is seen in Rizhao, Shandong province, July 16, 2015. According to Xinhua News Agency, a fire broke out after the explosion, which was caused by a liquified hydrocarbon leak at the plant, on Thursday morning. There was no report of casualties yet. (Photo by Reuters/China Daily)