Stephanie Courtney was working hard at her stand-up routines, and she continued to attend auditions in the hopes of landing enough work to pay her bills. Eventually, as she told Backstage in May 2020, "My agent at the time said, 'Why are you catering and killing yourself when you can book a commercial and that can be your acting scholarship?' She worked hard to get me a commercial agent. I booked a really good one early on and spent all that money in a month, then crawled back to all my survival jobs."

That "really good one" was a spot in a 1999 Super Bowl commercial for Bud Light. You can just about see Courtney in the background, staring impatiently at two guys trying to decide between purchasing toilet paper or beer (of course, they decided on the beer). Thankfully, it paid well because it was a Super Bowl commercial and it continued to air for several weeks afterward, allowing the actors to claim residuals.

Courtney continued, "I made a bunch of money — and then I spent it. On rent, lots of sweaters, fur-lined Ugg boots I only use now for costumes, and paying off credit cards. That money goes fast." On top of commercials, she began auditioning for television roles as well, but Courtney was landing only less than one paid job a year and relied heavily on catering and babysitting gigs.