NEW YORK: George Clooney and his Italian girlfriend Elisabetta Canalis may be taking their romance to another level. A friend who spent New Year’s with the lovestruck couple at in Mexico claimed the pair was getting serious.

“I have never seen him so serious about a girlfriend before. They were really happy together,” the New York Post quoted the friend as saying. A pal added, “But George is still preoccupied with the paparazzi covering his love life. He kept going on and on about how we need more laws to ban them. It’s like he is obsessed.”