Men slide in the mud during the Boryeong Mud Festival at Daecheon Beach in Boryeong, South Korea, Saturday, July 22, 2017. The 20th annual mud festival features mud wrestling and mud sliding. (Photo by Ahn Young-joon/AP Photo)

Two girls run through the heavy rain as people head out to Wind Street in Swansea, Wales to celebrate Halloween on Monday, October 31, 2022. (Photo by Robert Melen)

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.

Russian policemen detain participants of an unauthorized “Russian March 2020: For freedom and justice! We go out to say that Russian lives matter” organised by Russian nationalists on the National Unity Day in Moscow, Russia, 04 November 2020. Russian nationalists demand freedom for political prisoners in prisons and a fair investigation into the deaths of political prisoners, including representatives of radical movements who were killed during detention or found dead in places of detention. (Photo by Sergei Ilnitsky/EPA/EFE)

A Soyuz rocket booster carrying the Progress MS-17 cargo freighter blasts off the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kyzylorda Region, Kazakhstan on June 30, 2021. (Photo by Roscosmos Press Office/TASS)

A confiscated pet lion poses with a dog as it arrived back home from the Phnom Tamao Wildlife Rescue Center after Prime Minister Hun Sen ordered authorities to return the animal in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, July 5, 2021. (Photo by Cindy Liu/Reuters)

Director George Clooney reacts as he and his wife lawyer Amal Clooney arrive for a screening of the film “The Tender Bar” as part of the BFI London Film Festival, in London, Britain, October 10, 2021. (Photo by Henry Nicholls/Reuters)

Spectators in fancy dress during Day 7 of The Championships – Wimbledon 2019 at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club on July 8, 2019 in London, England. (Photo by Carl Recine/Reuters)