Smolyakov made his debut in the film Kiss Dawns (1977).
He played the title role in the playwright "Farewell, Mowgli!" based on The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling.
In 2000 he received the prize of the newspaper Moskovskij Komsomolets in the category "Best Actor" for his role as actor in the play The Lower Depths by Maxim Gorky.
In 2002 Andrey Smolyakov, received an award from the Stanislavsky International Fund as well as an award from the Moscow Expert Jury for his role as Brucson in Der Theatermacher, a playwright by Thomas Bernhard.
At the awards ceremony at Mosfilm Andrey Smolyakov was the winner of the Golden Eagle Award (Russia) for the best supporting actor in Vysotsky. Thank You For Being Alive as Viktor Bekhteev, a KGB Colonel in Uzbekistan, a drama film about Vladimir Vysotsky.
The Russian series Grigorii R, directed by Andrey Malyukov, began on Russian TV Monday 27 October 2014; with Vladimir Mashkov as Grigori Rasputin and Smolyakov as the investigator Smitten.
