Between 2000 and 2007 Chyra worked in Rozmaitości Theatre (which changed its name to TR Warszawa in 2003). Since 2008 he's a member of Warsaw's Nowy Teatr team, led by the director Krzysztof Warlikowski. He starred in most of Warlikowski's plays: as Antonio in Shakespeare's The Tempest (2003), as Chanan/Adam S. in Dybbuk based on texts by Szymon Ansky and Hanna Krall (2003) and as Roy M. Cohn in Tony Kushner's Angels in America (2007). Łukasz Drewniak wrote for Dziennik – Kultura:
Andrzej Chyra plays the cynical lawyer Cohn in an exaggerated, furious way. As if he jumped with every hateful word. Evil boils in him as water in a pot. I haven't seen such an original role for a long time.
The actor also played Andrew in Martin Crimp's The Treatment directed by Artur Urbański (2002) and the title protagonist of Giovanni based on Mozart and Moliere, directed by Grzegorz Jarzyna (2006). In Nowy Theatre he worked on almost every production by Warlikowski – (A)pollonia based on Euripides and Hanna Krall (2009), A Streetcar based on Tennesee Williams's play alongside Isabelle Huppert (2010), Kabaret Warszawski (2013), and We Are Leaving (2018).
Lately, he's worked as opera director: in Gdańsk he realised The Players based on Gogol's libretto and with Shostakovich's music, completed by the Polish composer Krzysztof Meyer (2013). Jacek Hawryluk wrote in "Gazeta Wyborcza":
Andrzej Chyra's directorial debut was very successful: he made a true musical theatre out of The Players. Chyra created a study on deceit. The plot is extremely compelling. Chyra leads his actors in a very distinct way: they are all different, all characteristic (...) He creates not only relations between cheating cardsharps, creating tension in the play, but also infects us with the absurd and the dark humour of the situation. It is a truly comical opera.
A great challenge for Chyra as an opera director was the mise en scene of Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain, written for the stage by Małgorzata Sikorska-Miszczuk and composed by Paweł Mykietyn. He directed the play for the Malta Festival in Poznań in 2015. The risk he took paid off – Chyra was awarded Konrad Swinarski Award for directing the opera. In 2018 he directed another work – one of history's most popular operas, Carmen. It premiered in Teatr Wielki – Polish National Opera.
In the following years Chyra played many interesting roles in movies. He was the journalist Borys in Roland Rowiński's Say it, Gabi (2003), the intellectual Dawid, who killed a man who raped his wife in Symmetry by Konrad Niewolski (2003), Mała's father in Andrzej Jakimowski's meditative Squint Your Eyes (2003), "the Kiddo" - a member of the younger generation in a drama about the elderly Tulips by Jacek Borcuch (2004). He also played the psychotic police inspector Marek Jeklewski in Niewolski's Palimpsest (2006).
He played the virtual love addict Jakub in Witold Adamek's Loneliness on the Net (2006), the electritian Leszek in a Polish and German coproduction Strike directed by Volker Schlondorff (2006) and colonel Jerzy in Andrzej Wajda's Katyń (2007). He created a great leading role as the ruthless bailiff Lucjan Bohme in Feliks Falk's The Collector (2005). As Konrad J. Zarębski wrote for Kino magazine:
Andrzej Chyra became known thanks to similiar roles of ambitious thirty year olds, who crave success without taking others into account. In 'The Collector' he's a specialist, representing Polish yuppies, who performs his duties effectively and consistently. Not only his victims - the debtors - are afraid of him, but also other lawyers around him.
He was nominated for the Polish Film Award in 2011 for his portrayal of a honourable officer of the Polish navy in Borcuch's All That I Love. In the same year he appeared in one of the most original recent films - Adrian Panek's Daas.
Nevermind all of his success, he's still 'hungry' and challenges himself with surprising projects. In 2013 he appeared in The Performer - an experimental half-movie, half-performance about Oskar Dawicki and in two shorts by young directors - Piotr Sułkowski's Miruna and Maria Zbąska's - Psubrat.
Andrzej Chyra's talent and charisma raise interest not only among Polish filmmakers. In 2011 he played alongside Olga Kurylenko (Bond's girl from Quantum of Solace) in Michale Boganim's Land of Oblivion. The Israeli director, author of the documentary Odessa... Odessa! tells the story of the Chernobyl catastrophe, looking at it from the perspective of people living in the small town of Pripyat.
A year later he starred in the Swedish thriller Mörkt vatten directed by Rafael Edholm. In 2011 he starred as a sadistic client of a young prostitute in Małgorzata Szumowska's Elles alongside Juliette Binoche and Joanna Kulig.
In Szumowska's next film In the Name of... he played one of his best recent roles. It is a story of a homosexual priest, who is relocated to a village in Mazuria district, to open a centre for disturbed youth. At the 2013 Berlinale he was named on of the best actors, and the film about a man coping with his forbidden passions was emotionally seductive. A review in the Hollywood Reporter read:
Chyra creates a charming portrayal of a priest with many weaknesses, creating a strong relationship with the audience from the very beginning.
In 2013 for the role of priest Adam, Chyra received the best actor prize at the Gdynia Film Festival, confirming his position as one of the best actors of his generation.
