The "star" Ambler refers to at this moment is Kembra Pfahler, lead singer of the New York band The Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black, whom Ambler found for the spring '96 CK Jeans ads. But he could be talking about any one of a myriad of so-called stars. Because in Ambler's world of "Ned Ambler Pictures & Casting" - where underdogs always win - stars shoot out of a galaxy that includes the squatterdoms of Alphabet City, the cool digs of clubland and the rambling streets of Harlem.
"Photogr
aphers want the newest faces that no one's seen before, because they like having their own stars," he says. "That's what I do - I find their new stars."A lot of them are "really big stars" - which in Ambler's lexicon seems to translate to celebrities of the New York underground culture - such as drag queen Lily of the Valley, Paper magazine fashion columnist Lauren Ezersky or playwright Sander Hicks. Then there are rock 'n' roll personas such as Ron Knice of Bloodsuckers From Outer Space, Theo of the Lunachicks, or Pfahler, whom Ambler considers one of his greatest finds, and who has modeled for Italian Vogue and Details. Potential models come in all forms, from Sander Hicks, who was fixing his motorcycle one summer in front of Ambler's apartment, to a young girl Ambler saw in front of a Harlem McDonalds, to a squatter on Avenue D in Alphabet City on New York's Lower East Side. When Ambler says "star", clearly he's not talking Madonna or Mick Jagger.
Regardless, the casting director has cashed in on the current trend towards realism in advertising by gathering a pool of artistic (or relatively freakish, or just plain normal) folk with "other-worldly" looks. Then he transforms this motley flock of relatively unknowns into models with a lighthearted twist of fate. "I was a freak from the beginning," Ambler explains of his youth spent in Virginia. "I was the one playing ultimate Frisbee at the cemetery with my friends. People ragged on me, I took a lot of abuse just for being myself."
"Now I try to elevate other people like myself, to find a place for all the misfits, because I was always a freak growing up. What better job than to be able to hook people up with glamorous jobs?"
Ambler said he got out of Virginia as soon as he could, studied film in New York, then got a job as a freelance assistant at L'Uomo Vogue when no one else would hire him.
Ambler's knack for casting became apparent as editors sent him out to find maybe five guys for a shoot and he would come back with 50.
"I just had an eyes from the beginning," he explains. "And I liked the casting a lot more than steaming shirts."
His career came to include castings for photographers Mario Testino ("He's so glamorous and sweet, and he shoots really fast."), Stephen Meisel ("Who I love!") and Richard Avedon ("How amazing is that!"), for the fashion shows of John Bartlett, Matsuda, and Comme des Garcons, and for magazines such as Interview and Details.
A recent project he worked on, the new CK Be ads, has created some stir in the media about models looking like heroin addicts. Such imagery has given ammunition to none other than Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole, who blasted the fashion industry Wednesday for the "commercialization of drug abuse" and the "glorification of slow suicide."
Ambler chalks up the controversy to articles in "trashy papers people sitting on the bus like to read" and thinks the ad campaign got lumped in with the popular movie "Trainspotting", which is about heroin addiction.
"In reality, of course there are rock stars, models and politicians who are on drugs. Dole's just like the tabloid TV shows - muckraking for scandal. We're kind of over heroin chic now, so he's behind the times. It's like when Madonna did "Vogue", it was too late.
"The photographs are very stark and it looks very gritty," he explains. "We had one picture of this actor and his eyes looked real strange, and another boy has his shirt off and looks real skinny. So people are like, 'Oh, it's heroin addicts.' "If 'Welcome to the Dollhouse' came out this summer and was a really huge movie and 'Trainspotting' wasn't here, they'd probably link that to CK Be and say, 'It's all about misfits looking really ugly. Ugliness is fashion this summer.' But that wouldn't sell as many papers as heroin chic."
According to Ambler, the CK Be ads are really about a generation of kids, and how articulate, smart, and funny they are. "When you see them on TV, you're like 'Wow, they're amazing.' It's like the voice of the generation," he says. "They're not slackers at all."
In terms of a look, Ambler says the CK Be campaign is meant to show a cross-section of the general populace, including "average looking guys."
The current Gap campaign called for about 15 different types of people, including Asian rock singers, gospel singers, Latin kids, and a gay couple.
In an explosion of activity over four or five days, Ambler and his assistants started a chain reaction, gathered information to get the right looks. Then Ambler set off with his Polaroid.
"You have to target different places," Ambler says. "For Asian rockers, I called around and found the names of all the Asian bands, went to rehearsal spaces and Polaroided everybody."
For Latin kids, he went to Latin and Salsa clubs; for gospel singers he went to Harlem, and the list went on and on.
Ambler says he enjoys making people "stars", and he has taken on an almost parental role with those he has placed, evidenced by his calling them "my kids". He encourages them to take advantage of New York by "putting one foot in front of the other."
His own life has definitely taken a drastic turn since he began transforming real people into almost surreal people.
"One day I was sitting on the curb and I couldn't get a job at a coffee shop or a juice bar, anywhere. They wouldn't hire me here," he says above the din of coffee cups.
"The next day I wan in a limousine going to Fred Leighton to get a $12,000 diamond tiara for Isaac Mizrahi to wear in this shoot with Albert Watson."
Later at Café Orlin, when a clear-skinned waitress in plaid pants brings the receipt, it doesn't include the $1.95 for Ambler's raspberry lemonade.
With a comic's timing and without a trace of fabulousness, Ambler says, "Her name's Heather. I cast her last week for the new Gap campaign. So now I get free lemonade here."