diff --git a/changelogs/fragments/70690-async-interpreter.yml b/changelogs/fragments/70690-async-interpreter.yml
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..55a29f3c158
--- /dev/null
+++ b/changelogs/fragments/70690-async-interpreter.yml
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+bugfixes:
+- async - Fix Python 3 interpreter parsing from module by comparing with bytes
+  (https://github.com/ansible/ansible/issues/70690)
diff --git a/lib/ansible/modules/async_wrapper.py b/lib/ansible/modules/async_wrapper.py
index 640e74cf93c..5379726ae67 100644
--- a/lib/ansible/modules/async_wrapper.py
+++ b/lib/ansible/modules/async_wrapper.py
@@ -21,7 +21,7 @@ import time
 import syslog
 import multiprocessing
 
-from ansible.module_utils._text import to_text
+from ansible.module_utils._text import to_text, to_bytes
 
 PY3 = sys.version_info[0] == 3
 
@@ -114,14 +114,11 @@ def _filter_non_json_lines(data):
 
 
 def _get_interpreter(module_path):
-    module_fd = open(module_path, 'rb')
-    try:
+    with open(module_path, 'rb') as module_fd:
         head = module_fd.read(1024)
-        if head[0:2] != '#!':
+        if head[0:2] != b'#!':
             return None
-        return head[2:head.index('\n')].strip().split(' ')
-    finally:
-        module_fd.close()
+        return head[2:head.index(b'\n')].strip().split(b' ')
 
 
 def _make_temp_dir(path):
@@ -152,7 +149,7 @@ def _run_module(wrapped_cmd, jid, job_path):
     filtered_outdata = ''
     stderr = ''
     try:
-        cmd = shlex.split(wrapped_cmd)
+        cmd = [to_bytes(c, errors='surrogate_or_strict') for c in shlex.split(wrapped_cmd)]
         # call the module interpreter directly (for non-binary modules)
         # this permits use of a script for an interpreter on non-Linux platforms
         interpreter = _get_interpreter(cmd[0])
diff --git a/test/integration/targets/noexec/aliases b/test/integration/targets/noexec/aliases
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..66a77c7b29a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/test/integration/targets/noexec/aliases
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+shippable/posix/group2
+skip/docker
+skip/macos
diff --git a/test/integration/targets/noexec/inventory b/test/integration/targets/noexec/inventory
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..ab9b62c8bb3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/test/integration/targets/noexec/inventory
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+not_empty  # avoid empty empty hosts list warning without defining explicit localhost
diff --git a/test/integration/targets/noexec/runme.sh b/test/integration/targets/noexec/runme.sh
new file mode 100755
index 00000000000..ff7065583a7
--- /dev/null
+++ b/test/integration/targets/noexec/runme.sh
@@ -0,0 +1,9 @@
+#!/usr/bin/env bash
+
+set -eux
+
+trap 'umount "${OUTPUT_DIR}/ramdisk"' EXIT
+
+mkdir "${OUTPUT_DIR}/ramdisk"
+mount -t tmpfs -o size=32m,noexec,rw tmpfs "${OUTPUT_DIR}/ramdisk"
+ANSIBLE_REMOTE_TMP="${OUTPUT_DIR}/ramdisk" ansible-playbook -i inventory "$@" test-noexec.yml
diff --git a/test/integration/targets/noexec/test-noexec.yml b/test/integration/targets/noexec/test-noexec.yml
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..3c7d756b56b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/test/integration/targets/noexec/test-noexec.yml
@@ -0,0 +1,8 @@
+- hosts: localhost
+  gather_facts: false
+  tasks:
+    - ping:
+
+    - command: sleep 1
+      async: 2
+      poll: 1