ST. PAUL, Minn. — The "A Prairie Home Companion" movie that just filmed in St. Paul concerns the end of the radio show. The real show is not ending, but creator/writer/star Garrison Keillor says some changes may be coming to Lake Wobegon.

"When you do something for a long time, as I have, it becomes difficult to keep yourself in trim," says Keillor, who has been doing the radio show for 31 years and who plays a version of himself, known as G.K., in the movie. "You become slack, but this has been very inspiring. It makes a person resolve to do better when the radio show starts up again in the fall."

The "Prairie Home" of the movie is not the same as the radio show. Keillor says it's darker and was influenced by collaborating with the actors (including Meryl Streep, Lindsay Lohan, Virginia Madsen and Kevin Kline) and director Robert Altman.

Madsen, a big fan of "Prairie Home" and specifically of gumshoe Guy Noir, is relieved to hear Keillor has no plans to say goodbye to the radio program. "I had the impression that maybe Garrison was writing this screenplay as a farewell to the show, because he doesn't like to say goodbye," Madsen says. "But now I've heard him say that that is not the case and, in fact, he has a lot of plans for the show."

Keillor isn't offering specifics on what those plans may be.

"This is really good for us, to see this way of working," he says referring to the way the movie brings together a disparate group of artists to create something together. "On our show, we're in a weird position of doing a show that doesn't exactly have direct competition."

The danger of that, Keillor says, "is that we're this little, quiet pond, undisturbed. Sort of like a museum piece. Except we don't want to be a museum piece. Listening to the radio is not a normal thing. We have to get millions of people to do something that is not normal. So we have to continue to work to deserve the attention of the millions of people who listen."