Tibetan monks dressed as demons attend the Beating Ghost festival at the Yonghe Temple, also known as the Lama Temple, in Beijing on March 19, 2015. The Beating Ghost festival, or Da Gui festival in Chinese, is an important ritual of Tibetan Buddhism and is believed to expel evil spirits and shake off troubles. (Photo by Wang Zhao/AFP Photo)

Migrant children play with leaves during Christmas Eve at a shelter, as they travel with their parents as part of a caravan with humanitarian visas to transit throughout the country, in Monterrey, Mexico on December 24, 2021. (Photo by Daniel Becerril/Reuters)

Women sell bananas in the street, after traders in markets were prohibited from selling any non-food items in an attempt to halt the spread of the new coronavirus, in Kampala, Uganda Thursday, March 26, 2020. (Photo by Ronald Kabuubi/AP Photo)

A model's make up picture is stuck to a mirror backstage during the Autumn/Winter Madrid's Mercedes Benz Fashion Week, in Madrid, Wednesday, February 1, 2012. (Photo by Daniel Ochoa de Olza/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.

Cambodian children sleep on a pavement at a park in Phnom Penh on July 8, 2016. (Photo by Tang Chhin Sothy/AFP Photo)

Traditional dancers with their masks look on before their performance during “Nawa Durga Nach” Hindu dance festival in Bhaktapur on the outskirts of Kathmandu on March 28, 2024. (Photo by Prakash Mathema/AFP Photo)

In a simpler time all a child or an adult needed to enjoy the outdoors was a ball and a stick. Or maybe an old tire tied to a high branch to fashion a swing. And the only instruction given to children was to “be home before dark”. Now there are iPads and computers and television screens and shrinking safe public spaces. But despite the distractions and limitations of space, these images show the charm of kicking a ball or skipping rope endures. Sometimes with modifications as a nod to changing times. Here: in this Saturday, June 20, 2015 photo, a boy runs while playing with a motorcycle wheel in Samugari, Ayacucho, Peru. (Photo by Rodrigo Abd/AP Photo)