'Bones'' John Francis Daley just wants some respect

Lance Sweets has become a full-fledged member of the Bones crime-solving team. Now if only the boy-genius profiler could get a little respect.

"He's constantly trying to get through to these people that don't seem to take him very seriously," says John Francis Daley, who plays Sweets on the FOX series. "He is someone that is very, very stubborn and determined to be proven right even if he's wrong. And that makes it funny because you see that this character is really willing to do anything to get respect, and usually when someone is willing to do anything for respect they lose all respect to begin with."

As someone who deals in psychology, Sweets is at a double disadvantage with Booth (David Boreanaz), who thinks discussing emotions is a waste of time at best, and the empirical Brennan (Emily Deschanel), who doesn't even consider what he does science. Add his age -- the character, like Daley, is only in his early 20s -- into the mix, and one starts to wonder what if he could ever do anything to earn his colleagues' full respect.

"I think it's always possible," Daley counters. "I think they do even respect him, but they have never told him to his face and I don't know if they ever will. But it would have to take something like him taking a bullet for them, probably, to gain their full respect up front."

Nonetheless, Sweets will play a pivotal role in Thursday's (Feb. 5) episode, when the team is once again faced with its nemesis the Grave Digger. The killer abducts Booth, and the rest of the team -- along with Booth's brother (a returning Brendan Fehr) -- begins a frantic search to find him.

"My character helps the team find out who the Grave Digger is in this next episode where Booth gets captured," Daley says. "And I sort of profile, when they do find out who it is, I profile that person and help them to find information that will set Booth free.

"And I also have a fun little session with Dr. Brennan where she basically asks me to teach her how to interrogate people in the interrogation room. So I help her detect the subtleties of human emotions and expressions and teach her the simplest things that most people already know, but because Dr. Brennan thinks in a sort of different way, it's all new to her. I teach her when someone is being angry or sad or submissive, and hilarity ensues."

We learned a couple weeks ago, when Booth and Brennan went undercover in a traveling circus, that some of Sweets' family were carny folk. Daley doesn't quite know what to do with that bit of information, but he does say the character's past will come into sharper focus in coming episodes.

"I know that we do sort of learn a little more about his growing up in foster care and of whatever happened to him before he was adopted," he says. "I can't really go into specifics because it's ultimately speculative on my part as well. But from what I can gather from the upcoming episode, I think we are going to sort of learn where he came from and what secrets he's hidden along the way."

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