Lew Hendrix collects palm branches blown down by the outer bands of Hurricane Ian in the Ybor City neighborhood of Tampa, FL, early Wednesday morning, September 28, 2022. (Photo by Ted Richardson/The Washington Post)

Belgian-Dutch racing driver Maz Verstappen was racing for Red Bull at the Japanese Grand Prix in Suzuka at Suzuka International Circuit on October 9, 2022 when a spider on the camera lens threatened to get in the way of the action. (Photo by DPPI)

Commuters make their way across a street during rainfall in New Delhi on June 27, 2024. (Photo by Arun Sankar/AFP Photo)

Citizens are enjoying the festival by shooting hot spring water guns at the Yuseong Hot Spring Festival held on Oncheon-ro in Yuseong-gu, Daejeon in the first decade of May 2025. (Photo by Shin Hyeon-jong)

Jolie from China, who says she is afraid of the sun, stands near the Colosseum amid a heatwave in Rome, Italy on June 20, 2024. (Photo by Guglielmo Mangiapane/Reuters)

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 buys bread at a bakery in Cairo, January 8, 2015. The successful roll-out so far of a new “smart card” system to distribute subsidised bread has been a major achievement for Egypt's government, saving money while earning praise from families who no longer have to wake early to fight for loaves. (Photo by Mohamed Abd El Ghany/Reuters)

An African migrant stranded in Costa Rica bathes at a makeshift camp at the border between Costa Rica and Nicaragua, in Penas Blancas, Costa Rica, July 14, 2016. Thousands of African migrants are currently stranded in Costa Rica after they were denied entry into neighbouring Nicaragua, which they have been using as a crossing point in order to reach the United States. According to the Costa Rican Red Cross, most of these people from Africa, Asia and Haiti. It has been reported that many of them paid smugglers to reach Central America. However, when they arrived at the border gates, they were denied entry and were left with nowhere to go. (Photo by Juan Carlos Ulate/Reuters)