Participants from a North Korea military band perform during the Spasskaya Tower international military music festival in Red Square in Moscow, Russia, Friday, August 23, 2019. (Photo by Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP Photo)

Revellers take part during the annual Easter Parade and Bonnet Festival on 5th Avenue in Manhattan, New York City, U.S., April 9, 2023. (Photo by Eduardo Munoz/Reuters)

A girl shows off her elaborate outfit at the West Side Hallo Fest, a Halloween festival in Bucharest, Romania, Saturday, October 27, 2023. Tens of thousands streamed last weekend to Bucharest's Angels' Island peninsula for what was the biggest Halloween festival in the Eastern European nation since the fall of Communism. (Photo by Vadim Ghirda/AP Photo)

General view of performance during the “Fuerza Bruta Wayra” show on February 28, 2024 in Barcelona, Spain. (Photo by Xavi Torrent/Getty Images)

Cardi B attends the Fanatics Super Bowl Party at College Football Hall of Fame on February 2, 2019 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Shareif Ziyadat/WireImage)

A U.S. Army B-24 Liberator Bomber is hailed by a ground crewman as it takes off over a line of shark- nosed fighter planes at an advanced base in China on a mission on October 10, 1943, to bomb Japanese installations. (Photo by AP Photo)

Actress Ruby Rose, left, recipient of the Stephen F. Kolzak Award, hands her jacket to presenter Taylor Swift during the 27th Annual GLAAD Media Awards at the Beverly Hilton on Saturday, April 2, 2016, in Beverly Hills, Calif. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/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.