People visit the artwork titled Seven Magic Mountains by artist Ugo Rondinone, Wednesday, May 11, 2016, near Jean, Nev. The artwork was recently completed in the desert south of Las Vegas. (Photo by John Locher/AP Photo)

For centuries the Highlands peoples of Papua New Guinea fought over land, women and pigs. Sorcery and battle skills could elevate a clan to Bigmanship, where the bigger the “presentation”, the bigger the man. Clans therefore would paint their bodies and create fearsome masks as part of their psy. Here: These are the terrifying tribe of “mudmen” from a remote part of Papua New Guinea. (Photo by Jeremy Hunter/Exclusivepix Media)

English actress Liz Hurley, 55, poses topless in the snow in a photo taken by her son in United Kingdom at the end of January 2021. Brit stripped to white bikini bottoms from her own swimwear range and draped herself in a coat. (Photo by Instagram/The Sun)

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 cow grazes in a field in front of the Nahr Bin Omar oil field and facility near Iraq's southern port city of Basra, on April 4, 2023. (Photo by Hussein Faleh/AFP Photo)

Coco, a dog dressed as Chucky, participates in a halloween pet show in Callao, Peru, Sunday, October 27, 2024. (Photo by Guadalupe Pardo/AP Photo)

Iraqi paramilitary troops fire towards Islamic State militants during a battle with Islamic State militants on the outskirts of the ancient city of Hatra near Mosul,Iraq April 26, 2017. (Photo by Reuters/Stringer)

Women wearing protective masks talk to each other on a street, amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on December 17, 2020. (Photo by Lim Huey Teng/Reuters)