A man poses with a hyena along a street in Lagos, Nigeria November 4, 2008. (Photo by Akintunde Akinleye/Reuters)

An enterprising Chinese man pulls a bicycle cart packed high with bags of recyclable plastic containers in Shanghai July 25, 2002. The man sells each kilogram (2.2 pounds) of plastic for 0.08 yuan ($.01) to a nearby depot. (Photo by Claro Cortes IV/Reuters)

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.

An Iraqi soldier stands guard as a pipeline burns in the background after an explosion 30 kilometers (20 miles) northeast of Tikrit, Iraq, Monday, February 11, 2008. (Photo by Bassem Daham/AP Photo)

Lightning strikes during a storm over the Ionian Sea in Calabria, Italy on June 27, 2016. (Photo by Alfonso Di Vincenzo/Pacific Press/Rex Features)

The northern lights, or aurora borealis, appear in the sky over the Bamburgh lighthouse at Stag Rock in Northumberland, England on September 28, 2016. (Photo by Owen Humphreys/PA Wire via ZUMA Press)

Performers take part in a rain soaked Notting Hill Carnival on August 25th, 2014 in London, England. Despite the bad weather over 1 million visitors are expected to attend the two-day event which is the largest of its kind in Europe. The event has taken place on the West London streets every August Bank Holiday weekend since 1964. (Photo by Mary Turner/Getty Images)

An undated handout picture made available by the Symbio Wildlife Park on 28 November 2016 shows three Pygmy Marmoset monkeys including an adult male, a female juvenile and a four-week-old baby, at the Symbio Wildlife Park in Helensburgh, South of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. (Photo by EPA/Symbio Wildlife Park)