Claire Foy had just two weeks to bond with the carnivorous goshawks that serve as her costars in “H is for Hawk.”

The British film, adapted from Helen Macdonald’s best-selling memoir, charts how Foy’s Helen sinks into a grave depression following the sudden death of her father (Brendan Gleeson). By training and bonding with a Eurasian goshawk she names Mabel, Helen ultimately recovers.

Goshawks are imposing birds, twice the size of a falcon. We learn the two species are as different from each other as are a dog and a cat.

Watching Foy, best known for her Golden Globe and Emmy-winning young Queen Elizabeth II in “The Crown,” you wonder: How dangerous was this?

Foy, 41, noted how movies frequently demonize nature’s creatures.

“Films have got a lot to answer for with their depiction of birds of prey. I think they get not a very good handle on them.”

To bond with the birds, she revealed in a virtual interview, “I had two weeks to train, immediately before we started shooting.

“This is an independent film, so time and money were of the essence. I don’t know – I suppose if I give myself credit, it’s a pretty brave thing to do.

“But I do like my job” – acting – “which pushes me out of my comfort zone, challenging my perspective of what I’m capable of doing.

“But I never, ever in a million years,” she declared, “would have tried falconry outside of this film.”

As for the goshawks who play Mabel, “There were five in total. I worked with four, the fifth was a male, much smaller than the other Mabels. He was just a flying bird.

“Most goshawks live in woodlands and do short, sharp, low-level flying” – to find prey, like pheasants or rabbits. “Whereas the male would do the aerial high-flying shots. None of my birds were doing that.”

What was most surprising with goshawks, “There’s a lot of poop — and you never know when it’s coming. I don’t know whether that was the most surprising thing because I had been prepared for the nitty gritty of life for the goshawk by reading Helen’s memoir and various falconry books.

“What was most surprising? The tenderness I felt towards them. And the tenderness with which Lloyd and Rose Buck, who were the handlers (although it’s a disservice, really, to use that term).

“How they treated the birds was so loving and caring – and the birds responded in kind. That was really beautiful.

“I ended up feeling that quite soon into my training. Because of my teachers, I felt very tender and very sort of soft, I suppose, towards them, which I think is probably quite surprising.”

“H is for Hawk” opens Friday