Shah Rukh Khan and wife Gauri Khan with children Aryan, Suhana and AbRam. Picture courtesy: Gauri Khan's Instagram account

Q: Gauri Shinde is the second female director after Farah Khan you have worked with. How differently have both handled you as an actor?
A: Very well. I enjoy working with lady directors because their sensitivity even for the same scene stems from a very different place. Being a man myself, it is difficult to sense a scene like a woman does. Both of them (Gauri and Farah) being women, have very different sensitivity to each scene, each line, whether it is comic or emotional. So as an actor, it gives me a new dimension. I don't think like a woman, I don't feel like a woman. Having said that, both are very different schools. Farah is an extremely in your face, commercial, happy go lucky director, wants a massy film. Hers is more of a spectacle, performance oriented scripting and acting whereas Gauri is a far more realistic, intense and internalised kind of a director. She is the opposite spectrum of Farah as far as the kind of films both of them make are concerned. As women, both are gentle, kind and sensitive. As filmmakers, completely different. I am happy to do two opposite ends of spectrum. And I believe, women are more conscientious and hardworking so my work becomes easier working with them.