In this Tuesday, July 14, 2015, photo, Phoe Thaw, center, a member of the White New Blood lethwei fighters club, a Myanmar traditional martial-arts club which practices a rough form of kickboxing, stretches during a practice session in their gym on a street in Oakalarpa, north of Yangon, Myanmar. Three of the club's members competed this summer on a stage a world away from the street gym: a mixed-martial-arts “One Championship” event broadcast globally on cable television networks, where fighters could receive $1,000 for each fight, according to coach Myint Zaw who started the traditional fighters' club 15 years ago. (Photo by Gemunu Amarasinghe/AP Photo)

Actors Molly McNearney and Jimmy Kimmel attend The Hollywood Reporter's Annual Women in Entertainment Gala at The Beverly Hills Hotel on December 03, 2025 in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by John Salangsang/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

Vehicles move past a man resting on a taxi, as he waits for passengers, along a road in Karachi, Pakistan, May 5, 2015. (Photo by Akhtar Soomro/Reuters)

A dancer sanitizes the pole before performing on the outside patio at Cheerleaders Gentlemen's Club in Gloucester City, New Jersey, U.S. July 17, 2020. (Photo by Rachel Wisniewski/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 orangutan named “Pacquiao” dressed in a Santa Claus costume reacts as he joins an “Animal Christmas Party” at the Malabon zoo in suburban Malabon, north of Manila, Philippines Monday, December 21, 2015. The Malabon Zoo is one of the largest private collections of exotic and endemic animals in the Philippines. (Photo by Aaron Favila/AP Photo)

Female bodybuilders prepare to compete in the “Miss Bikini” category of the NABA/WFF Asia-Seoul Open Championship in Seoul on April 17, 2016. (Photo by Ed Jones/AFP Photo)

A statue of Vladimir Lenin in 1905 Goda Square in Yekaterinburg, Russia on October 14, 2020, with a face mask put on and signed “Protect Yourself and the Ones You Love”. A group of medical volunteers has put face masks on local statues with consent from the authorities. (Photo by Donat Sorokin/TASS)