As many Emmerdale fans will know, April is the daughter of Donna Windsor (Verity Rushworth), who fell to her death in 2014 in a bid to save her daughter and her true love, Ross.

While Ross has had his dalliances in the village and more recently with newcomer Steph (Georgia Jay), no one will quite live up to Donna.

“That was his first experience with love,” Parr told RadioTimes.com and other press. “When love is snatched away from you, you’re always gonna glamourise it and think about what could have been.”

He reflected on the time he went to film those final scenes between Ross and Donna, recalling that director Duncan Foster told Parr that Donna “is the only girl” that has ever loved Ross.

Parr added: “He didn’t have much of a relationship with his mother, because she had gone through postnatal depression and she had drowned Ross when he was a child. So nobody lives up to Donna in his eyes.”

Questioned further if he would like to see Ross settle down with someone in the village in the future, Parr explained that he’d rather Ross remained “a lone wolf”.

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He told press including RadioTimes.com: “I think, from my point of view, I don’t want to see him fall in love and get married and then have kids, because… Ross’s USP is that he’s kind of a loner, and he can attach into different people’s storylines, so I would like to keep him as a rogue.

“But then as I, Mike, approach 40, and Ross is actually 34, but does the way that Ross lives his life get a little bit sad, and will the audience get fed up of that?”

However, Parr enjoys playing the many different facets that there are to Ross and if that means keeping him as single as can be, then so be it!

Emmerdale airs Monday to Friday at 7:30pm on ITV1. Stream on ITVX.

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