Mikhail Olegovich Yefremov was born on November, 10th, 1963 in Moscow, into the family of the famous actor and film director, the People’s Artist of the USSR
Oleg Yefremov, and the actress of Sovremennik Theater Alla Pokrovskaya. For the first time Mikhail took the stage of the famous MKhAT at the age of thirteen, when under the patronage of his father he got a role in the play “When you go, look back!” At the same age the young actor made his film debut in an episode of the series Days of Surgeon Mishkin (1976), and in a couple of years gained his first popularity with the leading role in the brilliant children’s melodrama When I Will Become a Giant (1978) about a teenage poet, his life and love.
In 1982 after the first year of studies in the MKhAT School Studio, Mikhail was called up to the army and so graduated only in 1987. Afterwards he became the art director of the Theater Studio Sovremennik-2. However, in 1991 his troupe broke up and he joined Chekhov MKhAT, where he was engaged as an actor and a stage director till 1999.
At the same time, starting from the late 1980s Mikhail Yefremov resumed his film career. Remarkable works of that period include his roles in the historical drama Noble Robber Vladimir Dubrovsky (1989), the adventure blockbuster Vivat, Naval Cadets! (1991) and the resonant comedy A Man's Zigzag (1992) tackling on issues of sexual life. The followed four year break in Yefremov’s film career was interrupted with the role of King Charles IX in the popular TV series Queen Margo(1996). It was followed by Mikhail Yefremov’s role in Garik Sukachyov's drama Middle Age Crisis (1998), which became one of the emblematic films of the late 1990s.
However, the actor became super popular a bit later, after the release of Alexander Mitta’s series Frontier: the Taiga Novel (2000). For that film Yefremov was awarded Nika Prize as the Best Supporting Actor. His popularity kept growing with every new role of his. Film directors resorted more and more to the comic talent of Mikhail Yefremov.
In 2011 Mikhail Yefremov takes part in the TV project Poet and Citizen (now Citizen and Poet on the website F5), where he recites poems on the burning issues of the day written by Dmitry Bykov in the manner of great Russian poets.