Igor Petrenko was born on August 23, 1977, in Potsdam (GDR) to a Soviet military family.

His father Pyotr Vladimirovich Petrenko was a lieutenant colonel, and in addition to military service, he was a candidate of chemical sciences.

As a child, his main hobbies were gymnastics, judo and sambo, among his favorite school subjects was the English language.

In 2012, he played the role of Sherlock Holmes in new series based on the works of Arthur Conan Doyle.

In 2004 he divorced Leonova to marry actress Ekaterina Klimova, with whom he struck up a romance on the set of Moscow Windows.