Russian President Vladimir Putin (C) and Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu (back) attend a reception to honour graduates of military academies at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, June 28, 2016. (Photo by Alexei Druzhinin/Reuters/Sputnik/Kremlin)

White lioness Azira lies in the cage with her three white cubs, on February 4, 2014. Zoo owner Andrzej Pabich says white lions often have defects that prevent giving birth, or the mother rejects her cubs, but Azira has been patiently feeding and caring for her little ones. (Photo by Czarek Sokolowski/Associated Press)

“I’d come to the Altai Mountains on an Adventure Sherpas tour. Our group of 12 was made up mostly of Minnesotans who’d left warm weather and falling leaves for frosty Mongolia. We’d come to sleep in cozy ger tents, the traditional yurt abode of the Mongolian steppe; sip mare’s milk tea; climb mountain glaciers; ride horses to an ancient battle site, and attend the annual Eagle Hunting Festival in Ölgiy...”. – Kathryn Kysar via The Star Tribune. Here: hunter Berek and his eagle outside his home. (Photo by Brad Ruoho/The Star Tribune)

Antonina, 9, looks through a shrapnel-broken window after an online lesson on the first school day at her home in the village of Pokrovske, on September 1, 2022, amid Russian invasion of Ukraine. In Pokrovske, a tiny village of 24 people in the Mykolayev region of southern Ukraine, nine-year-old Antonina Sidorenko started school to the steady sound of cannons in this town near the front line. (Photo by Dimitar Dilkoff/AFP Photo)

Delphina Bianchi, 10, sits on the bed of a truck carrying giant pumpkins from her grandfather's John Muller's farm at the Annual Safeway World Championship Pumpkin Weigh-Off Monday, October 12, 2015, in Half Moon Bay, Calif. (Photo by Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP Photo)

“The Zulu are the largest South African ethnic group, with an estimated 10–11 million people living mainly in the province of KwaZulu-Natal. Small numbers also live in Zimbabwe, Zambia, and Mozambique. Their language, Zulu, is a Bantu language; more specifically, part of the Nguni subgroup. The Zulu Kingdom played a major role in South African history during the 19th and 20th centuries. Under apartheid, Zulu people were classed as third-class citizens and suffered from state-sanctioned discrimination. They remain today the most numerous ethnic group in South Africa, and now have equal rights along with all other citizens”. – Wikipedia.

Photo: A Zulu woman playing the piano while a group of others sit and listen (to put it briefly, Englishmen scoff over Zulu). South Africa, circa 1925. (Photo by General Photographic Agency)

“The Crimean War (October 1853 – February 1856) was a conflict fought between the Russian Empire and an alliance of the French Empire, the British Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and the Kingdom of Sardinia. The war was part of a long-running contest between the major European powers for influence over territories of the declining Ottoman Empire. Most of the conflict took place on the Crimean Peninsula, but there were smaller campaigns in western Anatolia, Caucasus, the Baltic Sea, the Pacific Ocean and the White Sea”. – Wikipedia

Photo: A vivandiere, a female soldier selling provisions and spirits, with the Allied forces during the Crimean War. (Photo by Hulton Archive/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.