diff --git a/hack/boilerplate.sh b/hack/boilerplate.sh
index b8cdb96f2..492db0938 100755
--- a/hack/boilerplate.sh
+++ b/hack/boilerplate.sh
@@ -1,5 +1,4 @@
 #!/bin/bash
-
 # Copyright 2018 Google LLC
 #
 # Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
@@ -13,16 +12,20 @@
 # WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
 # See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
 # limitations under the License.
+set -e
 
 # Ignore these paths in the following tests.
 ignore="vendor\|out"
 BOILERPLATEDIR=./hack/boilerplate
+files=$(python3 ${BOILERPLATEDIR}/boilerplate.py --rootdir . --boilerplate-dir ${BOILERPLATEDIR})
+
 # Grep returns a non-zero exit code if we don't match anything, which is good in this case.
 set +e
-files=$(python ${BOILERPLATEDIR}/boilerplate.py --rootdir . --boilerplate-dir ${BOILERPLATEDIR} | grep -v $ignore)
+relevant_files=$(echo "$files" | grep -v $ignore)
 set -e
-if [[ ! -z ${files} ]]; then
+
+if [[ ! -z ${relevant_files} ]]; then
 	echo "Boilerplate missing in:"
-    echo "${files}"
+    echo "${relevant_files}"
 	exit 1
 fi
diff --git a/hack/boilerplate/boilerplate.py b/hack/boilerplate/boilerplate.py
index 049db2ab0..2f9e2bce3 100644
--- a/hack/boilerplate/boilerplate.py
+++ b/hack/boilerplate/boilerplate.py
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-#!/usr/bin/env python
+#!/usr/bin/env python3
 
 # Copyright 2018 Google LLC
 #
diff --git a/hack/boilerplate/boilerplate.py.txt b/hack/boilerplate/boilerplate.py.txt
index 3b676c312..6d6f49ec8 100644
--- a/hack/boilerplate/boilerplate.py.txt
+++ b/hack/boilerplate/boilerplate.py.txt
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-#!/usr/bin/env python
+#!/usr/bin/env python3
 
 # Copyright YEAR Google LLC
 #