By now, you know Melissa McCarthy's famous Saturday Night Live impersonation of Sean Spicer: the podium-as-weaponry, the ravenous appetite for cinnamon gum... But in a new interview with The Ellen Degeneres ShowMcCarthy admits she was totally taken aback when the series of skits was first pitched to her.

McCarthy tells Degeneres in the clip above that a friend at NBC first proposed the idea, and that she was completely taken aback.

"I was like, 'What? How am I going to do that?' And cut to somebody saying like, 'Boy, do you really look like that guy!' I was like, 'Wait a minute!'" she explains.

Quickly, though, McCarthy got into the swing of things and embraced the chance to really get into character.

“I look so much like my dad,” McCarthy says. “I feel like my dad and Sean Spicer had a baby, and it’s me. Which makes it even stranger.”

"The prosthetics — the weirdest thing is that you mess with your ears and it really changes the shape of your head," she adds. "And then I really got into it and asked, 'Can I have eye bags?' And the answer was, 'Yes!'"

Somehow, Spicer has been amused by the role. Still, he told Extra McCarthy "could dial it back" and improve on the role as she "needs to slow down on the gum chewing; way too many pieces in there."

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