Chris Evans has been at the Toronto International Film Festival three times, but never as a filmmaker. He’s admits that he’s nervous to unveil his directorial debut in which he also stars, “Before We Go,” next week. “As an actor, you play a small piece of the puzzle,” Evans says. “As a director, you are part of every decision from beginning to end. If someone doesn’t like the movie, that’s on you. That’s intimidating.”

Evans has been appearing in films since he was fresh out of high school, but he only recently gained international fame thanks to his breakthrough role as Captain America in Marvel’s “Captain America” franchise, part of “The Avengers” saga. He had wanted to direct for a long time until the script for a love story about a street musician (Evans) who meets a girl (Alice Eve) at Grand Central Terminal came his way. Evans made the $5 million drama last winter in 19 days, shooting on handheld cameras on the streets of New York.

“Everyone said the hardest thing was going to be the amount of responsibility,” Evans says. “I loved it. I’m a bit of a control freak anyway. I really liked people needing me to answer questions.” But he admits he was sometimes stumped over the financial aspects of making a film. He recalls being asked to go on a tech scout. “I would have to say to one of my producers, ‘What’s a tech scout?’ ”

After he wrapped, Evans started to assemble together a rough cut on his computer all by himself. “During my Christmas break and New Year’s break, I did the first 30 or 40 movies on my laptop, using iMovie, which is embarrassing to say, but really helpful,” Evans says. “I was just cutting the movie. It’s very easy to navigate.” He then handed over the footage to an editor and they worked on the rest of the film in a real editing room.

Evans had a completed version of his film before his Marvel superhero alter-ego took over his life. In March, he jetted off to an international press tour for “Captain America: The Winter Soldier,” before flying to London to shoot the “The Avengers: Age of Ultron” sequel. (Evans says the next film directed by Joss Whedon is packed with even more action — “That’s Marvel,” he says. “Marvel is always trying to outdo themselves.”) On weekends, Evans would fly back to Los Angeles, where he would attend test screenings and look over notes to get the final version of the movie lean.

Evans says he probably wouldn’t be in the director’s chair now if it weren’t for “Captain America.” He was able to pre-sale international distribution rights to the film based on his global-brand recognition. “The beauty of being in the Marvel universe is you get a certain notoriety to greenlight a movie,” Evans says. Still, he wishes that he didn’t have to act in a movie he was directing. “The greenlight is as an actor,” he says. “If you want the opportunity to direct, you have to put yourself in the film.”

Lately, he’s been obsessively poring over scripts in search of his second feature. He hopes to shoot it sometime in the winter, before he dons Captain America’s tights again for the third film, which shoots in March. “There’s an opportunity to be more adventurous,” he says, of his process of searching for his next project. “I just want to make sure it’s something I’m passionate about, and I’m not just doing it because the opportunity is there.”

Evans has had a banner year: “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” is the No. 2 movie so far this year at the domestic box office, with $260 million. “I’m surprised when any one movie I’m in makes it big,” Evans says. “If there’s anything you can count on in this business, it’s that it’s not easy to make good movies.” He also headlined Bong Joon-ho’s “Snowpiercer,” which made $6 million in VOD sales alone for Radius-TWC. Evans isn’t sure about a release strategy for his film. “I feel kind of naive in trying to respond to that,” Evans says. “I’m still trying to learn about VOD.”

“Before We Go” premieres on Sept. 12 at the Princess of Wales Theatre. Sierra/Affinity is handling international rights, and CAA and WME are selling the film domestically.