The popular K-pop group Blackpink watch the fireworks at Etihad Park from the stage at the end of the show in Abu Dhabi on Saturday, February 4, 2023. (Photo by Live Nation Entertainment)

Vanessa, thirty-five, had three children with an abusive husband. She “lost her mind, started doing heroin”, after losing the children, who were taken away and given to her mother. The drugs led to homelessness and prostitution. She grew up on Arthur Avenue in the Bronx, but now spends her time in Hunts Point, “trying to survive everyday. Just doing whatever it takes”.

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 huge wasp measuring 2.5 inches in length, visiting the banana tree in my front yard”. (Photo and comment by John Matzick, USA/2013 Sony World Photography Awards via The Atlantic)

A person dressed as “bigfoot” makes their way through the strong wind and snow in the Back Bay neighborhood during a blizzard on January 27, 2015 in Boston, Massachusetts. (Photo by Kayana Szymczak/Getty Images)

Pakistani female police commandos attend a training session in Nowshera, near Peshawar Pakistan, Wednesday, February 11, 2015. Authorities formed a Special Combat Unit after Taliban militants stormed a Peshawar school on Dec. 16, 2014 and massacred 150 children and teachers. (Photo by Mohammad Sajjad/AP Photo)

A girl with Russian national flags painted on her cheeks takes part in celebrations marking the first anniversary of Russia's annexation of Crimea, in central Simferopol March 16, 2015. Russia marks one year anniversary of annexation of Ukraine's Crimea peninsula this week. (Photo by Maxim Shemetov/Reuters)

This is the remarkable moment a group of skydivers performed a world record breaking feat in honour of their friend who died while skydiving. Known as a “Bigway”, the daring jump involves 57 people holding hands in a predetermined design as they hurtle towards the ground, head first. After making the first shape, the group then break away before coming back together to form a second shape all in a single skydive. Captured using a GoPro camera by Alaskan skydiver, Ben Nelson, 36, the topsy-turvy footage shows the adrenalin junkies soaring through the air at around 160mph before banding together twice in mid-air, making the stunt a world first. (Photo by Ben Nelson/Caters News)