Vladimir Mashkov was born on November 27, 1963 in Tula, then his family moved to Novokuznetsk. His childhood was spent behind the scenes of theater, as his father was an actor and his mother – a stage manager of a puppet theater. He began his studies in drama at the Novosibirsk Institute of Theater Arts (Новосибирский театральный институт), from where he was expelled for bad behavior. Expelled once again from the Moscow Art Theatre School-Studio (MXAT), some time later he tried his luck there again, this time in the class of Oleg Tabakov (Олег Табаков). At the age of 24, under the direction of Oleg Tabakov, he played for the first time the role of Abram Schwarz in a play by Alexander Galich Silence of Sailors (Матросская тишина), the role he would play years later in his film Papa.
Beginning in 1992, Mashkov directed several plays, first in Oleg Tabakov's theatre, then in others. His first film roles went rather unnoticed until he starred in Denis Evstigneev's film Limita (Денис Евстигнеев). This role, together with his role in Valeri Todorovsky's film Katia Ismailova (Валерий Тодоровский), a loose adaptation of a short story by Leskov, made him very well-known in the country. One of his greatest successes was his role in Pavel Chukhrai's film The Thief and the Child (Павел Чухрай). After this film Mashkov also began to work abroad, especially in the United States. In 2002 he gained a solid international reputation with The New Russian by Pavel Lungin, in the role of a powerful Russian oligarch, in which many people recognized the illustrious businessman Boris Berezovsky.
In 1997 he directed his first film: The Orphan of Kazan (Сирота казанская), in which he directed very great Russian actors: Valentin Gaft, Lev Durov, Oleg Tabakov as well as his ex-wife Elena Shevchenko.
In recent years, Mashkov has been in great demand as an actor and as a director. He made a remarkable interpretation of Rogozhin in an adaptation of Dotoïevski's The Idiot directed by Vladimir Bortko for television in 2003.
In 2004 he directed his second film: Papa.
In the United States Vladimir Mashkov plays today alongside the biggest Hollywood stars and makes appearances on television, notably in certain episodes of the TV series Alias ("guest appearances", role of Kradic)