But no amount of self-deprecation could curb the obsession. Two years later, Esquire writer Chris Jones gushed over "that voice" in a profile : “Isolated like that in the dark, it's a thing of shivers. Husky but not a smoker's hack, deep but not masculine, breathy but not gaspy, a trace of New York but not Queens, New York. It's perfection. It's what gets you, even in a movie theater.”More recently, Anthony Lane wrote this florid passage in the New Yorker: “Then, there’s the voice; like Bacall, Veronica Lake, and Jessica Rabbit before her, Johansson appears to speak to us through a stream of invisible smoke, and her seductive nonappearance as Samantha, in ‘Her,’ showed how much body survives in the disembodied.”Ah, yes, Her, the apotheosis of ScarJo voice work. Spike Jonze’s film about a man, Theodore Twombly (Joaquin Phoenix), who falls in love with his operating system (Johansson) revealed she was just as attractive (to both the audience and the film’s protagonist) without a corporeal form. Describing why he went to Johansson, who came in after Samantha Morton was recast, Jonze told Indiewire : “The timbre of her voice is beautiful. It's the person inside the voice, it's her intelligence, and it’s her wit. She's the kind of person that can tease you and get right to your core but also it’s affectionate. You want to get teased by her.”Johansson’s performance in the film is remarkable, as she builds a character that is alternately wiser than Theodore and naive about the world she cannot completely experience. However, the role also seems like a natural outgrowth of the fetishization of her voice engaged in by people like Jones. To Theodore she is also a VILF (Voice I’d Like To Fuck) But it's not just that her voice carries some criteria of sexiness; there’s something omnipotent about it in Her — and elsewhere. In Luc Besson’s Lucy, she ends the movie with a God-like voiceover. (She gives her costar Morgan Freeman, a.k.a. Hollywood’s go-to deity, a run for his money). Kaa also has that quality. The snake entraps Mowgli by telling him, “I know what you are.” Then, through her eyes, she shows him a scene from his past, all the while circling around him, preparing for her feast. (Let’s not forget she also played an alien who lures men to their deaths in 2013's Under The Skin.)Naturally, Audible wasn’t aiming for “sexy” when casting her for Wonderland. However, it's definitely Scarlett Johansson reading, so make of that what you will. "She has the voice that sits lower in a register that has a more pleasing sound to the ear than others," Charzuk said. "I wouldn’t call it sexy. I wouldn't go that way at all. I would say it has a nice, pleasing tone that fit this book."Regardless of the project, there's something about the sound of Johansson that envelops an audience. That's why it works so well for Kaa. She coils you in tight and won't let go.