diff --git a/lib/ansible/plugins/action/__init__.py b/lib/ansible/plugins/action/__init__.py
index e54898b6db..3f4fff588e 100644
--- a/lib/ansible/plugins/action/__init__.py
+++ b/lib/ansible/plugins/action/__init__.py
@@ -488,8 +488,7 @@ class ActionBase(with_metaclass(ABCMeta, object)):
             verbatim, then this won't work.  May have to use some sort of
             replacement strategy (python3 could use surrogateescape)
         '''
-        # We may need to revisit this later.
-        cmd = to_bytes(cmd, errors='strict')
+
         if executable is not None:
             cmd = executable + ' -c ' + cmd