Hugh Jackman in rare role as villain in ‘Chappie’

NEW YORK — Whether as Wolverine in the “X-Men” franchise, Valmont in “Les Miserables,” the charming Brit aristocrat in “Kate & Leopold” or as the rough-hewn Drover in “Australia,” we see Hugh Jackman — for the most part — playing good-guy or heroic roles. However, in “Chappie” (opening Friday), writer-director Neill Blomkamp’s sci-fi thriller about expanded roles for robots in society, the actor clearly is the bad guy.

As Vincent Moore, Jackman plays a very ambitious computer designer interested only in creating a robotic killing machine for his tech company — one totally at odds with the thinking, feeling human-like robot named Chappie, invented by his corporate arch-enemy Deon Wilson, played by Dev Patel. In the film, Jackman will go to just about any ends to destroy both Chappie and the career of Wilson.

“Except for that horrible mullet [haircut], I loved playing Vincent,” Jackman — known for not being the least bit vicious — told me recently during a chat in a hotel suite in New York’s Chelsea neighborhood. “I got all my viciousness out on the screen,” the actor said with a big laugh.

Another thing Jackman truly loved was he did not have to put on an accent other than the one he was raised with in his native Australia — at least to a point.

“Neill said, ‘I want you to use your accent.’ I loved that — fantastic!” said Jackman. “Then we came up with a version of an Australian accent, except on that was frankly quite extreme. Neill kept telling me, ‘Just throw in some of that great Aussie slang!’ I, embarrassingly so, had to go Google it! I was Googling the subject of ‘Aussie slang’ in order to come up with some of those phrases we used in the film. It’s weird how fast you can forget things you grew up with.”

“Angry as a frog in a sock” was a favorite. “I love that one, which rates an 11 out of 10 for me,” added the actor with a huge laugh.

Jackman agreed that many Americans — perhaps even most — are unable to distinguish between British, Australian, South African or New Zealand accents. For the actor, that has been an “enormous advantage for me making films in America. I’ve been able to get away with a lot of things over the years,” he said with a wink.

In discussing “Chappie,” one cannot escape the film’s central themes about the advisability of using computers to act as police officers, or even in military roles. For Jackman, it’s all about merging a message with pure entertainment.

“What Neill does so brilliantly, as he has since making ‘District 9,’ is to create a film that is very entertaining but also delivers a message. I was watching ‘Chappie’ with my wife, who is not into sci-fi at all, and she was crying at the end. It’s emotional and funny, but ultimately Neill brings us an engaging, serious subject.

“I heard Sigourney [Weaver, who plays the CEO of the tech company making the robots] talking about science fiction films. She said, ‘Often sci-fi can be seen as cinema lite.’ I agree with her, but Neill’s movies are not. Neill actually has something interesting to say.”

For Jackman, the theme of “Chappie” was: “What if robots could think, and feel deeper and better than we can? Is that a good thing? Is it not? That’s a discussion we need to have.”

As for using them in armies or the police force, Jackman admitted, “It’s a very tempting idea, philosophically. It’s a fascinating thing to delve into.

“Immediately you think in some of those really dangerous, difficult and life-threatening situations — wouldn’t it be great to send in a robot, where if they were lost or destroyed or made a mistake it wouldn’t matter so much? But there are so many deeper questions to consider. Who’s controlling the robots? Who’s deciding what’s right or wrong? Who’s deciding when to use the robots, or not? Who’s deciding which side is good, or which side is evil? That’s where it all gets muddy.”

In the final analysis, Jackman said, “what this movie ultimately does — giving us a robot with human qualities — is it makes us think about what it means to be human in the first place. And, it also makes us focus on our responsibilites to the world at large, as flesh-and-blood, breathing, living human beings.”