Catholic pilgrim Matilde Madalena de Jesus crawls on a rocky trail carrying a bottle of water on her head during the annual pilgrimage of the dead (Romaria dos Finados), in the city of Juazeiro do Norte, Ceara state, in Brazil October 31, 2016. (Photo by Ueslei Marcelino/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.

On the morning of the February 18th, 2025, a foreign tourist wearing a scarf walks past a store window with spring clothes hanging on the street in Myeongdong, Seoul. (Photo by Park Seong-won)

Members of the Al-Baraa bin Malek batallion, part of the Free Syria Army's Al-Fatah brigade, duck to the ground as they pull a man (R) who was shot by a sniper twice in the Bustan al-Basha district of the northern city of Aleppo on October 20, 2012. (Photo by Javier Manzano/AFP Photo)

Actor George Clooney from the film “Ides Of March” arrives at the Hotel Excelsior during the 68th Venice Film Festival on August 31, 2011 in Venice, Italy. (Photo by Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images)

Veiled Thai women take a selfie on the Talo Kapo beach enjoying Eid al-Fitr on June 5, 2019 in Pattani, Thailand. Today is Eid al-Fitr, or Festival of Breaking the Fast, which marks the end of Ramadan, the Islamic holy month of fasting. (Photo by Paula Bronstein/Getty Images)

American actress Nicola Peltz poses on the red carpet as she arrives for the world premiere of the movie “Transformers 4: Age of Extinction” in Hong Kong Thursday, June 19, 2014. The latest installment in the blockbuster series of “Transformers” films is making its world premier not in the usual entertainment hubs of Los Angeles or New York but in the wealthy Chinese metropolis of Hong Kong, the latest sign of Hollywood's increasing focus on China's booming film market. (Photo by Kin Cheung/AP Photo)

An Israeli woman scrambles through the mud and under barbed wire at the competition of the Legion Run in the Menara Cliffs area of Kiryat Shmona, in northern Israel, near the Lebanon border 14 October 2016. Hundreds of participants ran five kilometers cross country in steep terrain and then navigated various obstacle courses including steep inclines and mud holes. It is the first time this non-competitive but supportive sporting event is held in Israel. (Photo by Jim Hollander/EPA)