By David Downs, Illustration by Conor Buckley

A 74-year-old retired doctor of nuclear medicine and Vietnam-era Navy veteran, Sam Halpern doesn’t take any shit. Halpern’s profane maxims, as recorded and dispatched by his son Justin Halpern on the wildly popular Twitter feed @shitmydadsays, have garnered more than one million followers. Now, the once-struggling 29 year-old screenwriter son has a book deal with HarperCollins (Shit My Dad Says, the book, is out in May), and a CBS sitcom pilot of the same name starring William Shatner. 48 Hour Magazine talks to Halpern Jr. about working with Shatner, hustling a book deal off Twitter fame, and why cutting through life’s bullshit isn’t as easy as it looks.

What can you tell me about the CBS pilot? Is that what’s keeping you busy?
We shot the pilot and I like it [laughs]. It just depends on what CBS thinks and if they like it. They’ll tell me in about three weeks whether they are going to take it up and pick it up for series.

Even your dad knows Hollywood is cruel and unfair. Have you divorced yourself emotionally from this project, or would you be crushed if it wasn’t approved?
No. I will be crushed. I will definitely be crushed. He can say that all he wants. But it doesn’t matter, I’m still going to be super-bummed out. But it’s hard not to get emotionally invested. It’s hard to remind yourself, “Well, I’m lucky to be here,” because you just want it to happen so badly.

What’s it like to have William Shatner be speaking lines your dad said, or ones inspired by him?
It’s amazing. It’s unbelievable. Shatner is very much like my dad, in real life.

Really?
Yeah, he’s a more cordial version of my dad. He looks like a teddy bear but he’s also a little intimidating. And he doesn’t want to get into any unnecessary conversations, which is just like my dad. You get the sense of “Do we have to have this conversation? Oh, we do? Well, then let’s have it” or “No we don’t? Let’s not have it.”

His Twitter feed is pretty good too.
I love that he ends every tweet with “My best, Bill.”

This book felt like a celebration of being forthright and direct because life is short, and we should cut the bullshit. Do you find yourself being like your dad that way? Can you be?
I just can’t be direct the way he is. I wish I could. He’s been that way his whole life. He has definitely suffered for it in some areas of life and I think he’s lost quite a few friends because of it. He probably didn’t get as high up as he could have. He could never hold an administrative position or something like that. Because he won’t put up with any B.S.

People don’t like that kind of honesty, considering how much we bullshit each other.
One of the things about growing up with somebody that brutally honest is that you tend to apologize for that person quite a bit. You tend to also be very aware of the awkward situations that it creates. You see that in the book. It might have had the opposite effect on me.

Your dad was a doctor of nuclear medicine though, did he have good bedside manner?
He was talking to patients that were months away from dying, that was his job. He was dealing with very severe cases and patients absolutely loved him. Apparently patients write him things, and all kinds of stuff. From what I hear from other doctors that knew him is that people really respected and loved his honesty. I think when you’re sick and you’re dying you just want to hear somebody be honest with you.

I like how your dad told you Hollywood was going to fuck you. Is it meeting your expectations?
It’s fun, I feel like I’ve been really prepared for a system that is very black and white and doesn’t care about your feelings whatsoever because growing up with my dad, it was never, “You’ll be a success. Failure is not an option.” It was always, “Yes, failure is an option. Don’t fail.”