If you've been paying attention to celebrity tastemakers, you might have heard whisperings about a certain old-Hollywood podcast from in-the-know starlets. Actresses like Chloë Sevigny and Gillian Jacobs have taken to Instagram to share their love for You Must Remember This, hosted and written by Karina Longworth. Earlier this year, while discussing the craft of acting with Winona Ryder in Interview magazine, Tavi Gevinson recalled listening to an episode about Judy Garland, which detailed that actress's sad story and "the way we've treated our idols over time."

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Longworth's Hollywood deep-diving also resonated strongly with me: As a child, I was so obsessed with The Wizard of Oz that my mother feared it would affect my well-being. While I couldn't grasp quite why at the time, I was completely entranced with Dorothy. Watching her yearningly sing "Somewhere Over the Rainbow," I felt that we were one and the same.

More recently, when I discovered You Must Remember This and listened to the episode Gevinson invoked, "The Lives, Deaths and Afterlives of Judy Garland," I realized I had been relating to something much greater than just the character of Dorothy. I had found solace in Garland's non-stereotypically Hollywood looks, and the pervasive feeling of being an outsider that permeated all of her work.

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That's the strength of You Must Remember This. Each episode explores its subject in such depth that listening to it feels like attending a séance. Longworth unveils Hollywood icons as the raw and relatable humans they truly were.

In sharing these long-ago stories, Longworth—whose podcast has been ranked as one of the best by Vulture, The Atlantic, and iTunes users—chronicles a place so mythologized it seems like Oz itself. Garland was one of the first Hollywood stars Longworth was drawn to; later she would admire Lauren Bacall and Audrey Hepburn. "I remember seeing How to Marry a Millionaire when I was, like, 15 and deciding that it must be terrible to be like Marilyn or Betty Grable and be so stupid, when you could be Lauren Bacall, who was so tough, and such a boss," she says. "Later I would come to have more empathy for the blondes, but I still love Bacall."

In the increasingly popular YMRT, not only does Longworth share her empathy for these misunderstood Hollywood stars, but she also strives to highlight their humanity. Most episodes of YMRT home in on one particular Hollywood denizen, from Madonna to Mia Farrow, and examine their lives and experiences with fame. Then there are the immersive, addictive season-long stints, like "Charles Manson's Hollywood," which devotes 12 episodes to the different celebrities who crossed paths with the '60s cult (think Roman Polanski and Dennis Hopper), or "The Blacklist," which explores postwar anti-Communist sentiment in the U.S. and its effects on the movie world.

Previously, Longworth was a film critic at LA Weekly, but left in 2013. "I wanted to try to get back to what I went to graduate school for, which was studying classic Hollywood film. I spent about a year and a half trying to figure out how to make a living doing that," she explains. "Then I started to hear the podcast in my head, and I thought I should try to see if I could make it."

It's fascinating to think that Longworth could imagine YMRT before she created it, because it has such a uniquely cinematic quality. Each episode opens with the famed Casablanca refrain, "As Time Goes By." The recording then fades into Longworth's voice, which is hypnotic. She sounds like an oracle, mysteriously relaying the secrets of the other side. Episodes are peppered with film clips, music, and readings—and the result is pure Hollywood magic.

Though the podcast has sparked a dialogue on the parallels between the Hollywood of today and yesteryear, Longworth is quick to point out that this wasn't her intention: "I think that would be a little schoolmarmish of me to be like, 'I want the industry to learn,' and I don't feel that way…. I'm interested in the human aspect of it all."

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Lana Turner in 1939

And she's right. What resonates about YMRT isn't cautionary Hollywood tales. It's the universality of the human experience, limelight or no. Longworth's true power lies in deconstructing the mythology of legends like Lana Turner, remembered in Hollywood as "Sweater Girl." Turner's need for male attention, coupled with her extreme bad luck in love, shaped the course of her life and career; the scandalous murder of her boyfriend at her 14-year-old daughter's hand cemented this perception. Then there's Raquel Welch, whose fur bikini pinup poster turned her into a star. She spent the rest of her life fighting to maintain control over the representation of her body and sexual identity.

YMRT's next season, premiering on August 9, will focus on legendary actress Joan Crawford. Famous for her iconic performances in films like Mildred Pierce, and made infamous by her daughter Christina Crawford's excoriating memoir Mommie Dearest (later turned into a film), Crawford was a bona fide legend who came back from being considered box office poison. Though she won't say much about it before the launch, through Longworth's detailed, lively reanimation of history listeners can expect to spend six weeks in Crawford's web. A foe of Bette Davis's, a frequent costar of Clark Gable's, and considered the ultimate flapper girl by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Crawford has a complex legacy. And Longworth is just the woman to revive it for us, decades later, in all its bewitching glory.