Emmerdale star Danny Miller has revealed that he almost didn’t attend his second audition for the role of Aaron Dingle—because he was about to fly off on a lads’ holiday.

The actor, who made his debut on the ITV soap in 2008 at just 17 years old, has since become one of the show’s most iconic figures. Aaron Dingle has been central to some of Emmerdale’s most challenging and emotional storylines, including self-harm, sexual abuse, and homophobic attacks while in prison. But Miller admitted his soap career nearly never happened.

“I’d Had Enough” of Rejections

Speaking on the Live, Laugh, Luke podcast with Luke Hamnett, Miller shared that before Emmerdale, he had faced dozens of unsuccessful auditions. He even landed a small role as Kyle Brown in the BBC drama Grange Hill, but rejection after rejection left him ready to give up.

“I auditioned for it and I must have done into the 30s of auditions of ‘no, no, no,’ and nobody likes rejection that many times,” he explained. “There were so many weird auditions I thought, ‘I’ve had enough of this, I’ll just do something else instead,’ and went to Faliraki.”

Miller admitted that when he first auditioned for Aaron, he didn’t take it seriously. He was told the character was only planned for six episodes and would just “cause a bit of a riot.”

A Holiday vs. A Call-Back

The actor recalled being with his friends, waiting for their flight to Faliraki, when he got the call that Emmerdale wanted to see him again.

“I went, ‘Oh no, I’m going away on my first lads’ holiday…’ I thought there’d be plenty more auditions, so I was just going to go,” he said.

Luckily, Miller’s best friend Aaron—who later inspired parts of the character—stepped in. “He paid for my flight home,” Miller revealed. “I came back and did the audition… and from that second audition, the casting director said, ‘It was always you.’”

The Groundbreaking Aaron Dingle Storyline

Miller went on to discover that Aaron was gay—something he hadn’t known when auditioning. Producer Gavin Blyth personally pitched the storyline to him.

“He said, ‘I don’t want to do this storyline with anyone else. If you don’t want to do it, we won’t do it, but I think we need to educate the country,’” Miller recalled.

“The idea was this tough lad just happened to be gay. Let’s just get rid of the stereotypes.”

The rest, of course, is history. Aaron Dingle became a groundbreaking character in British soap history, and Miller went on to win multiple awards for his raw and emotional performances.