What You Didn’t Know About Flo From The Progressive Insurance Commercials

She’s perky, she’s popular, and she knows how to wear a headband — she’s Flo from Progressive! But while her life might unfold in a simple fantasy world, the actor who plays the popular spokesperson –  the successful and popular Stephanie Courtney – lives out loud and in full color. A regular on the improv scene with an impressive list of guest-starring television appearances, she’s a whole lot more than a white apron and a perpetually cheerful demeanor. She’s a person with dreams and ambitions, and playing Flo is only one aspect of how Courtney has achieved comedic stardom. 

That said, she’s worked for Progressive for over seventeen years, which is quite a professional accomplishment even if she’s never recognized by fans for another persona. It makes her one of the longest-lived spokespeople of all time and proves that sometimes all it takes is a perky persona and a little bit of gumption to get where you need to go. But have you ever wondered what her personal life is like, what got Courtney into acting, or where you’ve seen her before? Here, we’ll break down a whole lot of information about the woman with the heart-emblazoned badge, digging deep to tell you everything you never knew about both Flo and Courtney.

Stephanie Courtney was born on February 8, 1970. A New York state native with two siblings, she first became enchanted with the art of acting thanks to one performer in particular: Kevin Kline, whose Pirate King was such an immortal part of the revival of “Pirates of Penzance” that he transferred his Tony-winning role from Broadway to the big screen film version of the property. “I remember seeing Kevin Kline in The Pirates of Penzance, and he stole the show,” Courtney told Cosmopolitan Magazine. “He was this fresh graduate from Juilliard, and he was handsome and funny and he could sing. I remember thinking, Oh, it’s possible to make this a job.”

Courtney lived close to New York City in Stony Point as a child, which means she was able to see a lot of theatrical plays and spend tons of time on Broadway when she was growing up. This is what caused her to aim toward the stage instead of the screen (despite her current success on television) when she became a college student. 

An active childhood where she was involved in community theater and local acting groups pointed Stephanie Courtney toward the Great White Way. “By the time I got to middle school, we did a play a year, and I was in all of them,” Courtney told Cosmopolitan. “In high school, we did a fall and a spring musical, and I was always in one of those. I would even show up to rehearsals I wasn’t supposed to be at. I loved everything about it, and I was never bored by it.” Naturally, all of this drove her toward a career in acting on the stage.

Courtney recalls that, at first, her parents were less than thrilled about her path. Her father hoped she’d go on to become a teacher instead of entering the dramatic field, and even she thought she’d get a sensible degree and then end up out of the limelight. And yet, years later, his doctor has pictures of Flo posted up in the waiting room of his office, proving that, sometimes, daughter knows best.

Though she auditioned for her local repertory theater and didn’t make the cut, Stephanie Courtney began matriculating at Binghamton University in the late ’80s, where she majored in theater and graduated with the class of 1992. “I was never tortured over whether I wanted to become an actor,” she told Binghamton University Magazine. “There was never another option in my mind.”

And so she began a career aimed toward theatrical success. One notable early role that earned Courtney praise and plenty of attention was that of Elizabeth Proctor in the school’s production of “The Crucible.” While it didn’t ultimately lead the actor to any breakthrough gigs, Courtney was grateful for the early training she received. Once she graduated from Binghamton, she moved to New York City to further study and apply her craft, which is where things got pretty hectic for Courtney. She would have to cope with hard times — and try to deal with fame coming less instantaneously than she’d hoped it might.

Stephanie Courtney ended up moving to New York to continue to study acting. While waiting for her star to take off, she lived with family members and worked a series of odd jobs. Waitressing, playing secretary, and taking on work in a bunch of other fields didn’t bring her closer to her ambitions, but she got to do a lot while bouncing about NYC. Auditioning constantly, she eventually took on a new roommate — Los Angeles Times columnist and author Megan Daum.

While her time living with Daum was brief, Courtney’s life in New York began to help her gain more confidence and land more gigs as a stage actor. Her first job was with a children’s theatrical company known for helping young actors get on their feet and find work that makes them union material. “The job was to perform for children. So we’d get in a van, drive around, stay in Motel 6s, and show up at an elementary school and do two musicals,” she explained to Cosmopolitan. “Then we’d pack up the van and drive to another city.” When the tour ended, she had her stage actors’ equity card, which allowed her to work toward bigger and better things. From there on in, her connection to and affinity for live improvisation would only get better.

Stephanie Courtney soon moved into the improvisational and stand-up comedy world, which turned out to be perfect for her. “Comedy felt a lot more comfortable. To write my own material, I just thought about the stories I tell my friends that make them laugh,” she told Cosmopolitan. “It’s empowering to be your own writer. It’s a much healthier way to approach this business, which can feel a lot like waiting and hoping that you’re picked. This is having fun on my own terms.”

Creating a play for herself and her sister to perform, called “Those Courtney Girls,” the duo ended up putting on the piece at the Aspen Comedy Festival. From there, she moved to Los Angeles with her sister, encouraged by an offer of representation.

While Courtney still doesn’t mind taking on dramatic roles and has, in fact, had minor parts in serious TV shows like “Mad Men,” comedy is where her heart lies. “I love doing a nice, juicy, dramatic role when I get the chance, but I feel most at home when there’s some sort of comedic angle,” she told Binghamton University Magazine.

Thanks to all of the connections Stephanie Courtney has managed to make in the entertainment world, including a friendship with Kristen Wiig, one would think that she would be a lock to get into a large improvisational show like “Saturday Night Live,” but the actor admits that the NBC staple wasn’t knocking her door down. “They were like, ‘Stop sending her stuff in.’ Like, ‘We’re not interested,'” she recalled for The New York Times.

It was an understandably demoralizing time for the young woman, who watched Wiig get signed to appear on the program and shoot to stardom thanks to her characters like Dooneese and Gilly. “I remember feeling so terrible. And just embarrassed. Like a weird shame. Like, ‘I shouldn’t even walk around,'”  she said. This in spite of the fact that she was now an ace Groundling and staple of the comedy troupe’s Friday night sets.

She might not be an “SNL” star, but Courtney has still managed to perform with a number of comedy legends like Bob Odenkirk, Tig Notaro, Maria Bamford, and Retta. And even without a stint at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, fame was just about to knock on her door.

When Stephanie Courtney auditioned for the part of Flo, she was just about ready to give up on trying out for commercials altogether. She had no money, and the cost of gas and car repairs was starting to outweigh the worth of driving to try and wow casting directors. “What I netted wasn’t exactly matching the hours I was putting in. I figured I’m not a face that makes people want to buy Lysol,” she told The Washington Post. “Then I auditioned for Progressive.”

She later explained to CBS Sunday Morning that an ad-lib during the audition got her the role. When Flo’s customer responded with a “Wow” to the “Wow” Courtney had previously uttered, the actor spontaneously replied, “Wow, I know, I say it louder,” because she was stunned by how loud her own outburst was. This gave depth to Flo’s character and charmed those in charge of casting. As a matter of fact, her approach changed the concept of the character, resulting in a whole Flo-based universe that includes characters like Jamie, who, in turn, has become popular enough to spin off his own commercial series. Courtney has been playing Flo ever since.

Stephanie Courtney says she’s continued to improvise while playing Flo, admitting that the character comes from a single inspiration: her mother. “What they were looking for was basically a friendly neighborhood waitress; she is super friendly and nice, almost to the point of madness, and I was like, ‘I can do that.’ I went straight to my mom and I credit her with Flo’s personality,” she explained in an interview with lohud. “I said, ‘Yes, I can become Jane Courtney!'” She later told CBS This Morning, “My mom genuinely loved people, and she was so happy for you. If something happened that was great for you, she was thrilled for you. […] She was at a ten all the time, anyway.”

Courtney has since begun to write the Flo commercials through her improvisational asides, something that she accomplishes by working with the brand’s writing team. “The writers are very open to what I think; there may be some improv here now and then, that is encouraged, by the way. All of us were working so hard to find out who this person was and what the boundaries were,” she told lohud. “With Flo, she was sort of originally this perfect little No. 1 employee, but the power has gotten to her.” That’s helped her invent characters like Flo’s reckless Valley Girl sister, Janice, and bring them to life. For the character’s 100th ad, Courtney appeared as many of Flo’s relatives, including Janice.

While she might be primarily known as Flo these days, Stephanie Courtney has continued to appear in other roles, both major and minor, on the big and small screens. Television fans who don’t recognize her as Flo might remember her from “Mad Men,” where she recurred as the acerbic switchboard operator, Marge. She also appeared 27 times on Adult Swim’s “Tom Goes to the Mayor” as various characters and played Kevin’s mom on “Fred: The Show.” She recurred 31 times on “The Goldbergs” as one of Bev Goldberg’s (Wendi McLendon-Covey) fellow yentas, Essie Karp, beginning in Season 5 through the series’ end. She also has multiple short-term guest-starring appearances on a variety of other series under her belt.

On the big screen, she was Gayla in the 2007 remake of “The Heartbreak Kid” and appeared briefly as a reporter in “Blades of Glory.” Her voice acting career includes appearances in “Mike Tyson Mysteries,” “Green Eggs and Ham,” and “The Looney Tunes Show.” On top of all of that, Courtney has acted in a number of commercials for companies other than Progressive, including McDonald’s and Bud Light. She continues to act and take on all sorts of acting roles while doing personal appearances and, of course, appearing in commercials as Flo.

Stephanie Courtney proudly describes herself as a late bloomer, and that seems to be true in her personal life as well professionally. She married her husband, theater tech Scott Kolanach, in 2008 at the age of 35. Kloanach, who also hails from Stony Point, New York, is the director of lighting for The Groundlings and manages Courtney’s Flo-based social media. Courtney confessed she stopped handling her own social media after rumors circulated that she was pregnant due to her appearance in one of the Flo commercials. Kloanach has been running the accounts ever since, as Courtney didn’t want to deal with reading this sort of internet rumormongering.

The popularity of Flo finally gave Courtney a chance to relax and enjoy herself, along with the financial security to finally bloom and live the kind of life she’s always wanted to live  — which includes becoming a mom.

Despite her success as Flo, there’s one thing that Stephanie Courtney still wants to do: star as a character in a movie created and written by her. It’s not a big surprise to know that this is one of her goals, since she’s an improvisational comic with a yen for the creative. Unfortunately, she hasn’t managed to nail this goal down yet, but she’s continuing to write and create.

“I am writing something just for mys — I shouldn’t even say this, but I’m writing something for myself,” she told The New York Times. “I don’t even think I should waste my time trying to pitch it to anybody, Because I understand that it would be received politely. It would be a great meeting. We’d have water.” She did reveal that it’s set in high school. But she knows that it will be hard to get producers to see her as anything but the Progressive Lady actor from those commercials. “I would probably finance it,” she said, then joked, “I will probably take my kid’s college money.” Hopefully, she won’t have to go that far.

It turns out that Stephanie Courtney’s natural talents extend beyond the acting world; she’s apparently also a bit of a farmer in her spare time. She told New York Times that she keeps chickens on her property, with six hens that live in her backyard. She even gave her interviewer a clutch of eggs from her flock as a gift during their luncheon interview. “Did you think it was a purse?” she asked her interviewer at the time.

Not much else is known about Courtney. As we stated above, the actor doesn’t keep a personal social media account, and those that her husband maintains for her are generally inactive as of press time. It’s not even known if she and her family have any other pets in their home, but if they do, we’d expect that they’re all living their best suburban lives thanks to Flo from Progressive.