Vladimir Nikolayevich Smirnov was a Soviet and Bulgarian theatre and film actor, best known to audiences for the role of Jules Verne in the Soviet-Bulgarian multi-part television adventure film directed by Stanislav Govorukhin, "In Search of Captain Grant" (1985). He graduated from LGITMiK in 1965 (Boris Zon's workshop). He was an actor at the Leningrad Lenin Komsomol Theatre. In 1967 he married Bulgarian student Silvia Spasova and moved with her to Bulgaria.

From 1969 he was an actor at the National Youth Theatre in Sofia. He appeared in films. The peak of his popularity with Bulgarian film audiences was in the 1970s-1980s. He retained citizenship of the USSR and Russia. He passed away on 10 August 2000 in Sofia, Bulgaria, after suffering a severe stroke, in his 59th year.