Caleb Reginald McLaughlin[1] (born October 13, 2001) is an American actor. He gained international recognition playing Lucas Sinclair in the Netflix series Stranger Things (2016–2025). He began his career playing young Simba in the Broadway musical The Lion King, and then had small roles in television. After finding success in Stranger Things, he appeared in the drama films High Flying Bird (2019) and Concrete Cowboy (2020), the latter his first lead role in a feature film. He also was in the miniseries The New Edition Story (2017) and has had several television voice acting roles.
McLaughlin was born on October 13, 2001, in Carmel, New York, to April and Corey McLaughlin.[2] He attended Kent Primary School and later went to George Fischer Middle School for one year. He studied dance for a year at Happy Feet Dance School and then was a student at Seven Star School of Performing Arts in Brewster Hill, New York, for one year. He later studied at Harlem School of the Arts in Harlem, New York under Aubrey Lynch, a former Lion King producer.[3][4][bettersourceneeded]
In December 2020, McLaughlin was named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 Class of 2021 list.[8] On January 8, 2024, it was announced that McLaughlin was set to feature in a biopic about British-American rap artist 21 Savage, alongside Donald Glover and Savage himself; McLaughlin was expected to play a younger version of 21 Savage.[9] On January 24, Savage revealed that the biopic's announcement was actually a "parody", although he said that "it could be [a real movie] one day".[10]
Advocacy
McLaughlin in Neuss, Germany at the German Stranger Con in 2022
McLaughlin has spearheaded the social media campaigns #EmbraceYourFace and #BeYourBiggestFan which promote healthy body image, positivity, and self-esteem.[5] He said, "Feeling good about yourself is healthy. It always starts with you first, before it goes to anyone else... You have to learn to love and appreciate yourself."[5] In 2020, he encouraged people to vote in the 2020 US presidential election, posting a video on his Instagram account with links to Vote.org.[11]
McLaughlin has talked about the racism he says that he felt he experienced being the only black actor in the main cast of Stranger Things, saying, "My very first Comic-Con some people didn't stand in my line because I was black... Sometimes overseas you feel the racism, you feel the bigotry. Sometimes it's hard to talk about and for people to understand, but when I was younger it definitely affected me a lot."[12][13]
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
