Ivan studied on the same course with many future luminaries of Russian cinema: Tigran Keosayan, Bakhtiyar Khudoynazarov, Fyodor Bondarchuk, Aleksandr Bashirov, Rashid Nugmanov and others.

[4][5] Okhlobystin's career began with the picture "The Leg" by Nikita Tyagunov, which was released on the screens in 1991, he received the prize as best actor at the festival "Molodost-1991" (because of superstitious reasons he was credited under the pseudonym of Ivan Chuzhoy).

On February 16, 1996, in the Moscow Art Theater premiered a theatre piece based on his play "The Villain, or Cry of the Dolphin" staged by Mikhail Efremov.

In the late 1990s, Ivan wrote for the magazine "Stolitsa" but soon left the publication, because as he said, it turned into a "brothel",[6] then worked in the staff of the weekly "Vesti".

Patriarch Kirill removed Okhlobystin from the priesthood in February 2010, banning him wearing priestly vestments and the cross.

[7] On 5 September 2011 he announced that he would run for President of Russia in 2012 through the "Sky Coalition", but later gave up the idea, citing the opinion of the Russian Orthodox Church.

In December 2013, he said that he wanted to "burn homosexuals alive," describing them as a "constant threat to his children," and that he could not watch this "Sodom and Gomorrah" any longer.