"I am a hardcore commercial cinema lover. I want to assist Farah Khan. She can make you laugh, and emotional at the same time," Aarti said here. 

She shared her desire to work with Farah at the trailer launch of her film "Mumbai Varanasi Express" on Monday.

Aarti also lauded Bollywood's women directors. 

She said: "We have so many wonderful female directors -- be it Farah Khan, Zoya Akhtar, Leena Yadav, Nitya Mehra, Meera Nair or Nandita Das. I really admire all of them. I watch their work repeatedly to understand their filmmaking."

 Aarti also said that she would like to direct Akshay Kumar and Salman Khan. 

"But it really depends on the script. It may not be a superstar, but a right actor who fits into the role, someone like Irrfan Khan," she said. 

Aarti will debut as a director with "Mumbai Varanasi Express", and the actress says the low phase of her career made her take a decision of studying filmmaking in New York.

"If my career was on a high point, I wouldn't have thought about going to New York. I was facing a low point in my career, where I was offered the kind of roles that I didn't want to do," she said, adding that her first love will always be acting.