[1] He studied under the prominent director Theodore Komisarjevsky and debuted in Yakov Protazanov's Aelita (1924).

Later he became a Protazanov regular, appearing in The Man from the Restaurant (1927) together with Mikhail Chekhov.

In the 1930s he was a leading actor of Alexander Tairov's Chamber Theatre, before moving to the Maly Theatre where he was engaged from 1938 till the rest of his life and most fully unfolded his actor's gift, mainly playing classical repertoire parts (in Wolves and Sheep, The Inspector-General, Heart is not a Stone, The Thunderstorm, etc.

)[2] Mikhail Zharov gained wide popularity thanks to the role of Zhigan in Nikolai Ekk’s internationally known drama Road to Life (1931).

Playing the leader of a gang of thieves, the actor made use of the opportunities of the first sound-film: he endowed his character with a specific accent, played the guitar and sang songs with his peculiar charm.