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.

Body surfers ride a large wave at the Wedge in Newport Beach of the Southland coast on May 20, 2011 in Newport, California. Surfers have been lured to the south facing beaches for the biggest swells of the season. (Photo by Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images)

Meet Sygmond the grey. He had the face of a king when he was a kitten. This majestic cat is even fluffier today fully grown and whenever he goes, he makes it epic.

Ali Asair, who has left his family behind and traveled hundreds of kilometers in search for a pasture for his animals, attends to his camel in a pastoralists' settlement in the Bandarbeyla district in Somalia's semi-autonomous region of Puntland, Somalia, 24 March 2017. According to media reports, the United Nations says only 31 percent of 864 million US dollars appeal for a drought-hit Somalia is funded. The UN said the world is facing the largest humanitarian crisis since 1945, adding that more than 20 million people are facing the threat of famine in Somalia, Yemen, South Sudan and Nigeria and 1.4 million children could die from starvation this year. (Photo by Dai Kurokawa/EPA)

A driverless vehicle runs at Vanke's Building Research Centre testing area in Dongguan, south China's Guangdong province November 2, 2015. The country's largest property developer, China Vanke, is investing in its own robots to do certain jobs in the face of a labor shortage in the world's most populated country. This driverless car is among the robots that Vanke is aiming to bring in. (Photo by Tyrone Siu/Reuters)

Artist Heather Dewey-Hagborg's 'Stranger Visions', comprising of 3D printed faces extracted from DNA taken from discarded cigarette butts and chewing gum, is displayed at the Big Bang Data exhibition at Somerset House on December 2, 2015 in London, England. The show highlights the data explosion that's radically transforming our lives. It opens on December 3, 2015 and runs until February 28, 2016 at Somerset House. (Photo by Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images for Somerset House)

Balal, who killed Iranian youth Abdolah Hosseinzadeh in a street fight with a knife in 2007, is brought to the gallows during his execution ceremony in the northern city of Nowshahr on April 15, 2014. The mother of Abdolah Hosseinzadeh spared the life of the her son's convicted murderer, with an emotional slap in the face as he awaited execution prior to removing the noose around his neck. (Photo by Araash Khamooshi/AFP Photo/ISNA)