Claire Foy didn't want to do impersonation of H is for Hawk author

Claire Foy tries to avoid doing an impersonation when playing a real person on-screen.

The British actress, who famously played Queen Elizabeth II in The Crown, plays a real person in her latest film, H is for Hawk.

In the adaptation of Helen Macdonald's 2014 memoir, Foy portrays Cambridge academic Helen, who acquires and trains a goshawk to help her cope with the grief of losing a loved one.

While Foy met with Macdonald over Zoom and listened to them reading the audiobook to help her prepare, she didn't want to try and impersonate the author.

"When you're playing someone who's real, you have to think about what you can do to communicate who that person is without doing an impersonation - you cherry-pick the things you feel resonate emotionally and try not to suck too much... you don't want to be vampiric about it!" she quipped in an interview with Harper's Bazaar.

However, the 41-year-old revealed that filming H is for Hawk was an immersive process as she sometimes wore Macdonald's actual clothes and handled their personal belongings.

Explaining why this appealed to her, Foy added, "I like things to feel as real as possible, because then it's less of a leap to transplant yourself mentally into the situation."

As for starring opposite a bird of prey, the Unsane star admitted that she was getting to know the goshawk at the same time as Helen in the story, which added a layer of authenticity.

"It was very close to reality, but then, that's what you hope all acting is," she noted. "This was just an incredibly crystallised version, because the person you're acting with is a goshawk, and they're not pretending. You're the only one who's pretending."

H is for Hawk is now showing in cinemas.