(When/Why) Is it useful to mark up characters for indirect speech?

[tombogle]

On the Discord discussion that kind of led to this effort, @RobH123 asked: "What about indirect speech?"
The existing Glyssen Character Verse control file does include a large number of entries for places in the Scriptures which have been identified as having speech which is likely to be rendered as indirect speech. It is worth noting that some languages (almost) never use direct speech, while others (almost) never use direct speech.
For the purpose of preparing a script for audio recording, presumably the only thing that matters is direct speech. Anything expressed as indirect speech will just be read by the narrator.
So the question is whether there are times that it would be useful to have a text marked up to indicate the character who spoke the words or thought the thoughts that are being expressed indirectly? If so, when/why/how would that be useful? I assume that if a text were to be marked up (whether using USFM milestone markers, stand-off markup, or some other mechanism) to indicate the character associated with indirect speech, that markup would need to distinguish clearly between direct and indirect speech.

[RobH123]

Yes, I think it would be inexpensive for markup to distinguish between direct and indirect speech.

In my mind, I'm always thinking about providing sufficient data for a future Bible study app that might want to do complex searches.

[tombogle]

As you think about different kinds of "almost speech" that would be helpful to mark up, here is a great sample verse to consider:

When the men of that place asked him about his wife, he said, “She is my sister,” because he was afraid to say, “She is my wife.” He thought, “The men of this place might kill me on account of Rebekah, because she is beautiful.” GEN 26:7

It has indirect speech, direct speech, a didn't say quote, and a thought.