Trevor Noah wows Hoda with Obama, Clinton impressions

Trevor Noah revealed his favorite presidential impression to do — Barack Obama — and explained his approach to depicting recent presidents with such accuracy.

The comedian and host of "The Daily Show" told Hoda Kotb on TODAY that he loves doing his Obama impression to the former president's face.

"He'll see me and be like, 'Oh, Trevor, what's going on?'" Noah said while doing his Obama impression.

"And then I'll say that to him: 'Mr. President, uh, good to see you,'" Noah continued. "And he's like, 'I don't sound like that, Trevor.' And I'm like, 'Uh, but you do! You sound exactly like that.' And he's like, 'Uh, no, I don't.'"

"It's fun," he added. "I play with more of a caricature of who they are in my head. I'm not trying to impersonate them, I'm trying to impersonate the character of who they are to me."

Noah's impression left Hoda cackling and asking if he could do a good impression of former President Bill Clinton.

"I don't really, no," Noah said, before gliding into a near-perfect Southern accent. "He just always has a story about everything, that's all I know about him," he said of the 42nd president.

Hoda then asked if Noah ever gets mistaken for another celebrity. He shared an incident that happened while he was at a basketball game with his friends, and a man came up to him asking for a photo.

"You're The Weeknd, right?" the man asked him.

"I'm not The Weeknd, sir," Noah said he told the man. "So we don't need to take this picture ... and my friends are sitting there; they're loving this."

Noah said the man walked away with his wife before turning around, pausing for about 10 seconds, and then "confidently" said to his wife, "He's lying, honey. I know The Weeknd when I see him. I know it's him."

"I should have said, I am The Weeknd and screw you. I'm not going to take a picture," Noah jokingly told Hoda.

Noah, who announced in September he will be leaving "The Daily Show," said his decision came down to wanting to have more time to explore other aspects of his life.

"It's not that I wanted to leave the show," he said. "It's that I needed to find a way to make time for everything else that's happening in life."

The comedian explained that he was scared to join the show seven years ago, and he was also scared to leave it. He added he hopes he is scared to do his next project: "I always think to myself, if you're not scared to try something or to do something, then why are you doing it?"

Noah is heading on tour next year, and his third Netflix special, "I Wish You Would," started streaming Nov. 22.

He shared that performing stand-up comedy is his favorite thing to do in his off time. "I know it sounds wild, but I relax," he said. "I get to enjoy a city, I get to explore the cultures of the places that I'm going to. It's how I learn different languages, how I explore the world."

Noah’s last day as the host of "The Daily Show" is Dec. 8.

This article was originally published on TODAY.com