U.S. President Donald Trump holds news conference on the coronavirus outbreak at the White House in Washington, U.S., February 26, 2020. (Photo by Carlos Barria/Reuters)

Cast member Keri Russell attends the premiere of “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” in Los Angeles, California, U.S. December 16, 2019. (Photo by Phil McCarten/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.

Beautiful woman and man playing domination games in bed. (Photo by nd3000/Getty Images)

A small section of the expanding remains of the Veil Nebula, a massive star that exploded about 8,000 years ago. The entire nebula is 110 light-years across, covering six full moons on the sky as seen from Earth, and resides about 2,100 light-years away in the constellation Cygnus, the Swan. Image taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. Released September 24, 2015. (Photo by Reuters/NASA/ESA/Hubble Heritage Team)

Tightrope walker Tatian-Mosio Bongonga hangs from a tightrope as she pauses while scaling the Monmartre hill towards the Sacre Coeur Basilica (not pictured) in Paris, France, July 20, 2018. (Photo by Philippe Wojazer/Reuters)

Nyibol Lual, 13 years old, helps her family to prepare the land for cultivation on May 31, 2017, in Panthau, Northern Bahr al Ghazal, South Sudan. The family has a small land where they cultivate sorghum. An estimated 63 per cent of the population in Northern Bahr al Ghazal is experiencing severe food insecurity, according to the latest Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report. The situation is particularly bad in Aweil West and Aweil South counties, where the exhaustion of household food stocks and growing dependence on financially inaccessible markets have left the population facing Emergency levels of food insecurity. (Photo by Albert Gonzalez Farran/AFP Photo)

People wearing mushroom hats stand in front of the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C., U.S., May 14, 2021. (Photo by Andrew Kelly/Reuters)