diff --git a/Modules/_xxsubinterpretersmodule.c b/Modules/_xxsubinterpretersmodule.c
index 640fd69061d..ce0d511bc5a 100644
--- a/Modules/_xxsubinterpretersmodule.c
+++ b/Modules/_xxsubinterpretersmodule.c
@@ -307,7 +307,7 @@ _sharedexception_bind(PyObject *exc, int code, _sharedexception *sharedexc)
     }
 
     if (exc != NULL) {
-        PyObject *msgobj = PyUnicode_FromFormat("%S", exc);
+        PyObject *msgobj = PyObject_Str(exc);
         if (msgobj == NULL) {
             failure = "unable to format exception message";
             code = ERR_NO_MEMORY;
diff --git a/Modules/_zoneinfo.c b/Modules/_zoneinfo.c
index 97e550197a2..77644c3155b 100644
--- a/Modules/_zoneinfo.c
+++ b/Modules/_zoneinfo.c
@@ -420,7 +420,7 @@ zoneinfo_ZoneInfo_from_file_impl(PyTypeObject *type, PyTypeObject *cls,
         return NULL;
     }
 
-    file_repr = PyUnicode_FromFormat("%R", file_obj);
+    file_repr = PyObject_Repr(file_obj);
     if (file_repr == NULL) {
         goto error;
     }