Kylie Minogue's Moulin Rouge Fairy Tale

Long before "Can't Get You Out of My Head" reintroduced Kylie Minogue to America, the Australian disco belle was a superstar everywhere else in the world. So why on Earth didn't her compatriot, Moulin Rouge director Baz Luhrmann, conjure up more hallucinations featuring the pop tart as the Green Fairy? Could he possibly have been working in the absence of absinthe?

"I would have loved to have [given Minogue more screen time]," Luhrmann tells TV Guide Online, "and, actually, at one point, I was thinking that the Green Fairy might reappear.

"But," he continues, "I had to be very disciplined about subjugating all of the decadence, if you like, in the interest of telling the story."

Despite his firm resolve, the snubbed Oscar outcast still sounds like Minogue's small role makes him want to chug a large glass of the emerald elixir she represents. Like everyone from Ian McKellen to TRL's audience of ADD sufferers, Luhrmann has been seduced by the 33-year-old sometime actress (Bio-Dome, Cut).

"I'm sad, because I love Kylie," he admits. "I've worked with her for years. But it was one of those things."

At least while he considers hitting the bottle, Luhrmann — and, for that matter, all of Minogue's admirers — can take some comfort in knowing that the pint-sized pixie's part has been enlarged as much as possible on the DVD release of Moulin Rouge.

"On the DVD, I've taken all the dance sequences and extended them to their full length outside of the film so that you can see them in their own beat," he explains. "And with Kylie, you can see all the early Green Fairy sequences that we did."

We'll drink to that!