Caleb McLaughlin

CTL-E-5825 · Person · other · 2001–present

VERIFIED evidence grade — build store (JSON graph)

Combined Graph record U-07081 · provenance: build store (JSON graph), record CTL-E-5825.

Caleb McLaughlin, born Caleb Reginald McLaughlin on 13 October 2001 and raised in Carmel, New York, is an American actor who began on Broadway and became a defining face of streaming-era television. Trained in dance at the Harlem School of the Arts under former Lion King producer Aubrey Lynch, he played young Simba in The Lion King on Broadway from 2012 to 2014, taking small television roles alongside the run. In 2016 he was cast as Lucas Sinclair in Netflix's Stranger Things, a role he held through the series' final season in 2025; the cast won the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series. He played the young Ricky Bell in BET's miniseries The New Edition Story (2017), appeared in Steven Soderbergh's High Flying Bird (2019), and took his first lead role in a feature film in Concrete Cowboy (2020). Voice work in animation, including Final Space and Summer Camp Island, rounds out a career built, unusually, on two long-running ensembles: a Broadway musical and a global streaming phenomenon that grew up alongside its young cast.

The record

• Also known as: Caleb Reginald McLaughlin

Notes

Staged 2026-10-16 under CTL-GOV-006 (Census Intake Wave 2 — 747 Program, Wave 8; 40-record packet). Gate A (2026-10-16): no Caleb McLaughlin entity in the live graph at 3,523 entities (exact / normalized / alias + token containment); ID CTL-E-5825 free. Supply: 747 Supply Ledger, Tier 3 — Famous Birthdays ABSENT census, readiness rank 842 (TV Actors list). The census supplied the NAME ONLY; no fact in this record is sourced to it (CTL-GOV-004). SCOPE GATE: PASS — Black American television figure. Vital status: LIVING — played Lucas Sinclair through Stranger Things' final season (2025); photographed in 2025 coverage. CONFLICTS CARRIED: birthplace — Wikipedia's infobox gives New York City while its early-life text and Simple Wikipedia give Carmel, New York; this record carries only 'raised in Carmel,' and the birthplace is left UNRESOLVED. STATISTICS (sourced, dated): Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series (Stranger Things, 2017 ceremony); young Simba in The Lion King on Broadway, 2012–2014 — Wikipedia, accessed 2026-10-16. MEDIA: photo HELD (candidate: Wikimedia Commons and press photography of this subject exists; no file page was read at file-page level in this pass, so no image is cleared — CTL-PHOTO-001; a CTL-created graphic is the standing alternative); chart FILLED (charts/chart-ctl-e-5825-caleb-mclaughlin.svg); video HELD (the Shorts Link Map catalog was checked by name and variants — no matching-entity CTL Short exists for this subject); audio HELD (no CTL-owned or rights-cleared matching-entity audio). MEDIA LAYER (staged 2026-10-16; full per-asset PHOTO-001 records + embed specs in the packet's staged JSON, Drive packet folder): map = N/A (Person records carry no map slot under the media-layer rule; maps attach to places and institutions.) | visual_assets = HELD: | chart = FILLED (CTL-created SVG (black / deep red / gold) built only from this record's sourced facts) | video = HELD (No matching-entity CTL Short in the Shorts Link Map catalog (checked by name and variants), and no official/em) | audio = HELD (No CTL-owned or rights-cleared matching-entity audio at staging; the subject's own recordings and performances)

Sources

• Wikipedia, "Caleb McLaughlin" — born Caleb Reginald McLaughlin, 13 October 2001; raised in Carmel, New York; young Simba in The Lion King on Broadway; Lucas Sinclair in Stranger Things (2016–2025); Harlem School of the Arts training; High Flying Bird (2019); Concrete Cowboy (2020), his first feature lead — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caleb_McLaughlin (build store)
• Stranger Things Wiki (Fandom), "Caleb McLaughlin" — Lucas Sinclair; Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series; previously young Simba in The Lion King on Broadway; Ricky Bell in The New Edition Story — https://strangerthings.fandom.com/wiki/Caleb_McLaughlin (build store)

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Record CTL-E-5825 · Combined Graph record U-07081 · CultureTechLens Knowledge Graph · 2 sources.
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Researched and maintained by the CultureTechLens research program · CultureTechLens Combined Graph, Release 2026-11-04. Corrections are public: the corrections log.

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