diff --git a/Lib/test/test__interpreters.py b/Lib/test/test__interpreters.py
index 14cd50bd305..bf3165e2341 100644
--- a/Lib/test/test__interpreters.py
+++ b/Lib/test/test__interpreters.py
@@ -551,6 +551,24 @@ class DestroyTests(TestBase):
             self.assertTrue(_interpreters.is_running(interp))
 
 
+class CommonTests(TestBase):
+    def setUp(self):
+        super().setUp()
+        self.id = _interpreters.create()
+
+    def test_signatures(self):
+        # for method in ['exec', 'run_string', 'run_func']:
+        msg = "expected 'shared' to be a dict"
+        with self.assertRaisesRegex(TypeError, msg):
+            _interpreters.exec(self.id, 'a', 1)
+        with self.assertRaisesRegex(TypeError, msg):
+            _interpreters.exec(self.id, 'a', shared=1)
+        with self.assertRaisesRegex(TypeError, msg):
+            _interpreters.run_string(self.id, 'a', shared=1)
+        with self.assertRaisesRegex(TypeError, msg):
+            _interpreters.run_func(self.id, lambda: None, shared=1)
+
+
 class RunStringTests(TestBase):
 
     def setUp(self):
diff --git a/Misc/NEWS.d/next/Library/2024-11-11-13-00-21.gh-issue-126654.4gfP2y.rst b/Misc/NEWS.d/next/Library/2024-11-11-13-00-21.gh-issue-126654.4gfP2y.rst
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..750158e6d4d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Misc/NEWS.d/next/Library/2024-11-11-13-00-21.gh-issue-126654.4gfP2y.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+Fix crash when non-dict was passed to several functions in ``_interpreters``
+module.
diff --git a/Modules/_interpretersmodule.c b/Modules/_interpretersmodule.c
index 95acdd69e53..a9a966e79e0 100644
--- a/Modules/_interpretersmodule.c
+++ b/Modules/_interpretersmodule.c
@@ -936,6 +936,11 @@ static int
 _interp_exec(PyObject *self, PyInterpreterState *interp,
              PyObject *code_arg, PyObject *shared_arg, PyObject **p_excinfo)
 {
+    if (shared_arg != NULL && !PyDict_CheckExact(shared_arg)) {
+        PyErr_SetString(PyExc_TypeError, "expected 'shared' to be a dict");
+        return -1;
+    }
+
     // Extract code.
     Py_ssize_t codestrlen = -1;
     PyObject *bytes_obj = NULL;