Jake Stone, an actual State Farm Insurance agent, played "Jake from State Farm" in the 2011 commercial, per Medium. To nab the role, Stone, who was just 26 at the time, responded to a casting call for employees.
In the State Farm Insurance 2020 reboot commercial, the husband and wife bicker about the phone call, but there's a new Jake on the other end of the phone. Jake 2.0 asks his co-worker, "Hey, do they ever ask you what you're wearing?" Then, viewers see Stone, the original Jake, pop up and answer, "Uh, yeah." The genius move to include Stone shows the company didn't forget the original Jake.
In a 2014 interview with The Pantagraph, it was revealed that Stone had quit his part-time job as an agent two years prior "to become a seasonal employee for the town of Normal while keeping his bartending job." In the interview, the original Jake revealed that his life didn't change much after he starred in the popular commercial, revealing that aside from the occasional fan photo and request to say, "Uh, khakis," he's still "putting on his khakis, one leg at a time."
That being said, the commercial is still undoubtedly a cultural phenomenon.
