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.

American actress Tommy Dorfman and American Afro-Panamanian actress Tessa Thompson at Boom Boom Room's Met Gala After-Party on September 13, 2021 in New York City. (Photo by Marc Patrick/BFA.com)

Nyibol Lual, 13 years old, helps her family to prepare the land for cultivation on May 31, 2017, in Panthau, Northern Bahr al Ghazal, South Sudan. The family has a small land where they cultivate sorghum. An estimated 63 per cent of the population in Northern Bahr al Ghazal is experiencing severe food insecurity, according to the latest Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report. The situation is particularly bad in Aweil West and Aweil South counties, where the exhaustion of household food stocks and growing dependence on financially inaccessible markets have left the population facing Emergency levels of food insecurity. (Photo by Albert Gonzalez Farran/AFP Photo)

Canadian actress Shay Mitchell gets fitted for a photo shoot in the second decade of December 2023. (Photo by Shaymitchell/Instagram)

Cailee Spaeny and Kerry Washington attend Netflix's “Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery” Los Angeles premiere on November 17, 2025 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Roger Kisby/Getty Images for Netflix)

Two young women pose for a portrait, dressed in robes after collecting their Bachelor degrees in Conakry on October 12, 2020. Presidential elections are to be held on October 18, with incumbent President bidding for a third term in office, defying critics who say he forced through a new constitution this year enabling him to sidestep two-term presidential limits. (Photo by John Wessels/AFP Photo)

People and Nature category winner: Why did the sloth cross the road? by Andrew Whitworth (Osa Conservation and University of Glasgow), taken in Osa Peninsula, Costa Rica. “I was driving out from the Osa Peninsula, located on the southern Pacific coast of Costa Rica on a dark, stormy day. This female three-toed sloth (Bradypus variegatus) had luckily just about made it across the road, and the drivers of the Toyota on this occasion had spotted her in good time”. (Photo by Andrew Whitworth/2019 British Ecological Society Photography Competition)

Wang Zhengqing, a 74 year old pneumoconiosis patient, smokes his pipe at Yangjia Hospital in Wuyi County, Zhejiang Province, China October 19, 2015. Former miner Wang was diagnosed with the disease, which is caused by dust inhalation, when he was 24 and has lived at Yangjia Hospital for ten years. (Photo by Damir Sagolj/Reuters)