Since Aaron Dingle (Danny Miller) came back to Emmerdale last year he’s been pretty unpleasant – simmering with rage, picking fights, inflicting casual cruelty on people who don’t deserve it. But with the discovery of his mum Chas (Lucy Pargeter)’s cancer diagnosis, that’s started to change and the old Aaron is re-emerging.
It can’t come too soon for Danny Miller, who told us he’s had enough of Aaron’s bad boy phase.
‘For years, I was like: “I want to be the bad boy,” he admitted.
‘He was always the misunderstood, angry kind of thing, but it was: “I want to be the bad boy. I want to say things that shock actors in line runs and rehearsals.” You start to play it and you start to see the audience reaction from it and then you go “Actually, I don’t like this.”’
The fan reaction to some of Aaron’s recent exploits has been quite negative, the actor revealed. ‘Seeing stuff on social media, a lot of fans have hated this version of Aaron. I think hate’s a really strong word, but that’s kind of what it is,’ he said.
Danny recalled how difficult it was playing Aaron at his worst. ‘I had to say some horrible lines to Jim Hooton – Sam Dingle – about being a half-man, half-scarecrow. I couldn’t do it. It took ages to be able to do it, because me and Jim were laughing at it almost because it was so shocking and so awful that it’s almost laughable.’
While Aaron’s behaviour was quite vile, Danny could understand the pain that was behind it.
‘Hundreds of people throughout the time I’ve been back have said: “I don’t like you like that, why is he like that?” But then you actually break it down. It’s something he said to Mackenzie (Lawrence Robb). He lost Jackson, he lost Robert, he lost Ben, Liv died, his gran died, his dog died. He’s had so many things thrown at him, it’s no wonder that he’s angry at life.
‘As tedious as it is to play, when you actually break it down, you can see why he’s like that. I can totally, totally understand why he would be angry at life.’
All the same, there’s going to be relief all round as Aaron parks this angry side of his personality somewhat in coming episodes.
‘It’s nice to get to play that side of things and have the audience really not like me for a bit,’ Danny said. ‘I think everyone says “at least you’re doing a good job,” so I’ll take that.
‘But It’s nice to finally have a bit of the old Aaron back. There is a caring soul in there, but I think he always puts a wall and a guard up about his feelings because he’s terrified that someone’s going to leave him yet again. He said it to Mackenzie in one of the scenes: “If you don’t have anybody then no-one can hurt you.” That’s why he wants that loner life.’
Chas’s breast cancer diagnosis was the wake-up call that Aaron needed to reassess how he’d been behaving, Danny explained.
‘I think that shakes him back into reality. It’s nice that I get to do some nice stuff with Lucy, instead of just constantly at each other’s throats, or me at her throat saying nasty things.
‘I’m enjoying playing more of the old Aaron and trying to tame him down a bit, now that his sole focus is his mum, getting her through this and whatever he can do to help her, like running the pub.
‘I think that’s his sole focus, so getting on people’s nerves isn’t the main goal for him.’
